


Used to Take One, Now it Takes Four

by julia_wicker_the_goddess



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anxiety, Depression, Drug Addiction, Eating Disorders, F/F, F/M, Multi, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, The babies are terrible at taking care of themselves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 24,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23724916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julia_wicker_the_goddess/pseuds/julia_wicker_the_goddess
Summary: Raven, Octavia, and Lincoln suck at self-care. Because of their intertwined lives and difficult circumstances, things quickly get messy and demons they thought were behind them start to take hold.
Relationships: Octavia Blake/Lincoln, Octavia Blake/Lincoln/Raven Reyes
Comments: 20
Kudos: 39





	1. Raven

**Author's Note:**

> Massive trigger warning for suicidal ideation, eating disorders, self-harm, drug abuse, and co-dependency. If you are at all sensitive to these things, please keep yourself safe and away from this fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this fic is based on the song "You Don't Get Me High Anymore," by Phantogram. It doesn't have anything to do with the endgame number of people who will be together.

Raven Reyes sucks at self-care. Like, she’s really really bad at it. She’s just getting back from a doctor’s appointment, the summary of which is: she’s permanently damaged the tendons, ligaments, and nerves in her leg to the extent that she’ll certainly never play soccer again. She’s probably always going to have to wear a brace, too. The scarring on her tendons is so severe she can’t even really move her leg except from the hip. She’s been on heavy pain killers for 6 months but her pain is still at least a 6 on the pain scale daily. 

When she limps back to the apartment late in the afternoon, Octavia is gone. Making her way into the kitchen, she pulls a bag of chips down from on top of the fridge and opens them, shoving one into her mouth as she limps to the couch. She turns on the tv and cues up an overdramatic teen show on Netflix. The bag of chips doesn’t survive the episode. Staggering back over to the kitchen, she grabs a pack of unopened Oreos and a can of Coke. She’s thinking less and eating more and the episodes are scrolling by and all of a sudden everything is  _ wrong  _ and  _ bad  _ and she’s limping to the toilet as fast as possible and shoving her fingers to the back of her throat. The food (especially the carbonated soda) burns on the way up, but she’s done it before. She’s used to it. She loves it. And she hates herself for loving it.

When she finally gets up and rinses her mouth out, she feels  _ high. _ She hasn’t binged and purged in almost 4 years. Then she hears the door open and realizes Octavia must be home. She’s not sure what time it is. Realizing there are empty containers all over the couch, Raven swears under her breath.

“Hey.” Raven says easily when she emerges from the bathroom.

“Hey. How was the doctor's visit?”

“Fine.”

“Looks like someone’s been eating their feelings.”

“Yeah…” She says, hoping she’s coming off as natural and calm and not like she just relapsed into her eating disorder. “They said… at my appointment, the doctor said I’m probably never going to be able to walk without the brace. And there’s not a significant chance that I’ll get feeling back in my leg either.”

“Rae, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.” She doesn’t want to think about this, about how much she hurts

“Are you okay?”

“I just need to go to bed.”

Octavia nods, putting a hand on Raven’s arm. The injured girl flinches and turns away, making her way slowly to her room and shutting the door. Taking off her brace, she collapses into bed. The episode of binging and purging has numbed her tumultuous emotions exactly as she wanted it to. She’s in pain from her hip, but she’s tired enough that she falls asleep quickly.

_____________________________________________________________________

Physical therapy is a bitch. Abby Griffin is tugging on her leg, trying to stretch out her hip, and she feels like screaming.

“Just a little longer, Raven.”

“This hurts like a mother--”

“I know. But if your joint gets too stiff, we’ll have to go in surgically and you do not need that.”

Raven whimpers.

“It’ll be over soon.”

“Ow.” Tears catch in her throat. 

When Abby finally stops pulling and sets her leg down on the table, Raven works to compose herself, sniffling. 

“How’s the pain?”

“Bad.”

“Are you still taking the meds?”

She nods.

“Alright. Go home. Ice. And get some sleep, you look tired. I’ll see you next week.”

“See you next week.”

When she gets home, she needs to change out of her sweaty clothes. She pulls off her shirt, then sits on her bed and takes off her brace before sliding her pants off her legs. She catches her reflection in the body-length mirror on one wall and looks at herself. Standing unsteadily, she surveys her body. She hates it. She hates the angry scars on her leg where doctors have now tried twice to repair it. She hates the little bits of flab that have started to gather on her hips and her waist and her arms because she can’t play soccer or really exercise at all. She hates everything about herself.

Pulling on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt and strapping on her brace, she heads out of her room toward the kitchen. Octavia hasn’t gotten home from class yet. It seems more than natural for her this time. She doesn’t even leave the kitchen while she gorges herself on anything she sees. Twenty minutes later, she’s in the bathroom again, puking it all back up. Her hip hurts like hell when she gets up from the toilet, but the high she feels is overriding it better than any pain killer she’s taken.

____________________________________________________________

In two more weeks, Raven has binged 3 times and purged 9. Any time her stomach feels full, she has the urge to make herself sick. And she knows it’s bad, but the euphoria she feels and the fact that O hasn’t caught her help her deny how fucked up everything is getting.

Then one morning, Raven purges after breakfast. She turned on the sink to muffle the noise, but Octavia hears her.

“Rae, you okay?”

She jumps.

“Shit.”

“Are you throwing up?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Do you want me to come in?”

“No, I’m fine.”

She waits another few seconds, then flushes the toilet and gets up, rinsing her mouth out in the sink.

When she emerges, O checks her forehead.

“Do you think it’s the flu?”

“I don’t know. I feel a little better now.” She hopes that sounded nonchalant.

“Good. Why don’t you go lie down? I’ll get you some ginger ale.”

“I’m fine.”

“You just threw up.”

“I’m okay. Thanks, O.”

“Okay, just… stay near a trash can today, okay?”

She nods and limps into her room, shutting the door behind her. Octavia doesn’t seem to suspect anything, but she’s learned her lesson; she’ll be more careful next time. Realizing she does feel kind of woozy, she sits down on her bed, groaning at pain in her hip. She wishes she felt bad for lying to O, for hurting herself. But she doesn’t.

  
  



	2. Octavia

Octavia Blake sucks at self-care. Like, she’s really really bad at it. Her roommate is gone at a physical therapy appointment for her bum leg, and Octavia is sitting on the floor in front of a mirror, passing a razor blade from hand to hand. She’ll start using it in a minute, just needs a moment to prepare. Passing the blade to her right hand, she pulls up her shirt, exposing her stomach. She positions the blade carefully, gripping it between her middle finger and thumb, her pointer finger resting on the covered top of the blade. The cuts start thin. A few organized lines on the left side of her torso. Then she goes deeper. The blade catches in her skin, and there’s less of a delay between when it slides across the flesh and when the blood starts to pool in the wound. It hurts in a delicious way and she feels  _ high.  _ She catches the blood dripping down from the cuts on her ribs before it stains her pants.

It takes her ten minutes to come out of her intense focus and start cleaning up the mess. She uses toilet paper; it flushes the best, and then she doesn’t have to worry about her Raven seeing bloody tissues in the trash can. She doesn’t put bandaids on; she never does, just holds toilet paper to the wounds until they stop bleeding then gets up to flush the evidence. A sense of calm has come over her. She feels like she can face the world again.

Her mind is a scary place. Between her trauma-filled childhood, her chronic nightmares, and her bouts of suicidal ideation and panic attacks, she doesn’t know how to deal with herself. She’s gone long stretches without self harm; 9 months here, 4 there. But she’s been doing it since she was 12, and she always comes back to it, no matter how hard she fights it. Sometimes it’s letting herself get beat up at the gym; using the punching bag without gloves, lifting weights till she pulls a muscle, running till she pukes. Other times it’s bumping her arm against a hot pan or “accidentally” cutting her hand on a knife in the kitchen. But she also has a pack of razor blades shoved in a sock at the very back of the shelf in her closet. And that’s what seems to give her the most satisfaction. Lincoln and Raven know at least vaguely that she used to cut. They’ve seen the scars on her left forearm and shoulder, but she’s never really talked about it with either one. Neither of them know it’s still something she deals with, even though they know she’s anxious and depressed.

She hears keys jangling in the door and quickly checks to make sure she doesn’t have any blood stains on her shirt before exiting the bathroom and going to see how Raven is.

______________________________________________________________________________

She’s getting into one of her funks again, and she knows Raven can tell. The other girl doesn’t know she self harms, but knows she has ruts of depression and panic attacks. She can tell from Octavia’s tense body language, facial expressions and voice when she’s not okay. They’re watching How to Get Away With Murder together, and Raven looks over to Octavia, who’s on her way to a panic attack. Her shoulders are jerking, a result of the extreme tension in her body.

“O, you okay?”

“Yeah, I just feel kinda… you know.”

“What can I do?”

Octavia’s eyes flood with tears as she shrugs.

“Hey, hey.” Raven says soothingly, getting up with a wince and making her way over to the girl, who’s sobbing.

“Shh, you’re okay.”

Octavia buries her face in Raven’s shoulder.

“I feel--” She hiccups “bad.”

“I know. You’re okay. You’re gonna get through this.”

Her hands are shaking and she starts hyperventilating.

“Hey, O.” Raven pulls away so she can look her in the eyes. “You’ve gotta breathe.”

She can’t breathe and the more she thinks about it, the more she panics.

“Octavia, you’re okay. Just let your body do what it needs to.”

Raven hugs her again, holding her tightly as she breaks down into hard sobs again. It takes her a long time to calm down, and then she’s so exhausted she falls asleep on the couch with Raven stroking her hair. 

She wakes up in the middle of the night, wide awake and achy from her panic attack. Raven had covered her with a blanket, and she pulls it off, walking to the bathroom. When she gets out, she knows there’s no way she’ll sleep the rest of the night. The clock in the kitchen says 2AM. Going into her room, she grabs one of her linguistics books. She needs to study. She hasn’t been able to focus lately, but maybe doing it at an odd time will get her ass in gear. She keeps finding herself scratching the scabs off the cuts on her ribs. They’ve started to itch, as it’s been a couple of days since she inflicted them. There’s an indulgent sort of pain that comes with ripping the scabs off, and suddenly she’s not studying, she’s just bleeding again, but it feels like she can finally breathe again.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Raven’s been really down lately, and it stresses Octavia out. It’s half because she’s truly worried about her friend and half because she feels like she can’t confide in her when things are getting bad. She feels like a selfish bitch for even thinking that, but there really aren’t a lot of people she can confide in.

She’s in class and she feels like she’s on the way to another anxiety attack. It had been almost impossible to get out of the house, and Lincoln had to come get her. He’s beside her now and can clearly see from her facial expression that she isn’t well.

“Tae, you okay?” He whispers to her.

She doesn’t answer, just shivers a bit looking up at him.

He grabs her hand, rubbing it in between his fingers.

“Do you want to leave?”

“Um… no. I can hold out.”

By the end of class her jaw hurts from clenching. As soon as the professor dismisses them, Lincoln pulls her out of the classroom quickly and to a quiet area tucked away in a corner of the building.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” She says, bursting into tears.

“Okay.” Lincoln says, pulling her into a hug.

“Everything just feels… wrong.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shutters, gripping his shirt.

“Hey, do you want to go back to your apartment?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to walk or drive?”

“Drive.”

His car is in a distant parking lot, so he sits her down on a chair near the window, kissing her and going quickly to get his car. When he comes back, she won’t speak or look at him.

“Shit.” She’s getting bad. He practically has to carry her to the car and the whole ride home she’s sobbing harshly. He carries her inside and sets her down on the couch, sitting down next to her. She’s a mess of tears and snot and mascara.

“Love, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” She’s barely intelligible.

“Okay.”

“I just… I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to feel anything anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to exist.” 

“Hon...” His heart hurts.

“I can’t live like this. I can’t do this over and over again.”

“I love you so much. You can’t quit on me; on yourself. We will get you on the right combo of meds and therapy. And Raven and I are here to support you too.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re gonna get through this. I’m going to help you make it through.” There are tears in his eyes.   
She cries for hours, mumbling every now and then about how much she just wants to give up. He has no idea what to do. Raven comes home late in the afternoon, and when she sees Octavia, she swears.

“What happened?”

“She started getting tense in class. Been crying since noon.”

“Shit.”

Octavia whimpers and pushes weakly against Lincoln’s grip.

“Tae, it’s okay.” He says.

“I need to pee.”

He lets her go and she gets up, dragging herself toward the bathroom. When she shuts the door, Raven moves closer to Lincoln.

“What do i do?”

“Don’t leave her alone.”

“No shit, but like, what do I  _ do _ ?”

“Stay with her. Sleep in her bed. Get her to eat. Shit, she hasn’t eaten since breakfast.”

“I’ll make her something.”

He nods.

____________________________________________________________________________

  
  


In the bathroom, Octavia is scratching off her scabs again. Her fingernails scrape past the little bubbles of dried blood and go deep into the little slits of missing skin. She may have underestimated her scratching ability, because there’s blood dripping down her stomach again. She tears off some toilet paper, tucking it under her bra so it lays in place over her wounds. Pulling down her tight camisole, she thanks whatever higher power that she wore a sweatshirt, because she’s almost positive that the blood is going to soak through the toilet paper and cami, but her black sweatshirt should conceal it. Flushing the toilet so it doesn’t seem suspicious, she washes her hands and emerges from the bathroom.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, Raven is asking, “Lincoln, why are you so much better at taking care of people than I am?”

“Lots of practice.”

Raven raises an eyebrow, but Octavia comes back into the room. She’s stopped crying, at least for now.

“O, I’m gonna make you dinner. Do you want spaghetti or mac and cheese? Or lasagna. I’m clearly in a pasta mood. Are you?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

Raven ends up making spaghetti, and brings bowls out to Octavia and Lincoln in the living room. Octavia is too out of it to notice, but Lincoln sees that Raven doesn’t have a bowl for herself.

“Rae, you’re not gonna eat?” Lincoln asks

“I had a big lunch.”

“Okay…”

Octavia still sniffles occasionally as she slowly eats her spaghetti. They watch a movie and Octavia is sullen and silent. She just wants to be done, but there’s no way Lincoln and Raven are going to let her do that.

“O, when’s your next counseling session?”

“Next Monday.”

“I think maybe you should call and see if you can get in sooner.”

“Sure, fine.” It’s not going to help. She knows this. But if it’ll make Lincoln feel better, she’ll see her counselor. It seems like they’ve had the same conversations a million times. They’ve talked about her mom’s drug addiction, the strange men she used to bring home, and her eventual death. They’ve talked about what makes her anxious, and how sometimes it’s nothing at all. They’ve talked about reasons for staying alive and coping skills to “build a better life.” In Octavia’s opinion, it’s all a bunch of bullshit. She’s on her fourth trial of antidepressants this year. All of them seem to work for a little while, but then stop after a few months. She’s not sure there’s a better life to be had.

  
  


Lincoln has to go at 7, because Lexa and Clarke need him to watch their kids overnight.

“Hey O, I have to go soon.”

“Okay.” Her voice sounds hoarse and strained from crying.

“I love you. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

She nods and he kisses her before leaving. Raven and Octavia watch TV in silence for several hours, and then Octavia gets up.

“I’m gonna to go put on my pajamas,” she says, wondering if Raven will actually let her be by herself.

“Okay.”

Relieved, she goes to her room and shuts the door. When her sweatshirt comes off, there’s blood stains on her white cami . Pulling it off, she hides it near the bottom of her laundry basket; she’ll rinse it out tomorrow when Raven’s not home. Taking off her bra, she realizes her toilet paper bandage is now crusted onto the wounds on her ribs. It’ll have to stay till morning. She pulls on a sports bra, which holds the toilet paper against her skin nicely, then puts on a very large t-shirt and leggings. Raven knocks on her door, and she makes sure she hasn’t left anything incriminating around before letting her in.

“Hi.” She says. Her voice crackles unpleasantly.

“How are you feeling?”

“Bad.”

“Are you feeling safe tonight?” Octavia has some pretty specific ideas of how she could off herself, and it scares the shit out of Raven.

She stares at the floor, wanting to ask Raven what ‘safe’ means.

“Alright, I’m sleeping in here with you.”

“Fine.” She knows once Raven makes up her mind, there’s no talking her out of it, especially when it comes to Octavia’s safety.

Octavia goes to brush her teeth and wash her face, and then comes back into her room, slipping underneath her covers. Raven comes back after taking one of her pain pills, pulls off her brace and sits down on the edge of the bed. She looks hesitant, and Octavia thinks it must be because she can’t move herself very well with her bum leg.

“Need a hand?”

“No, I’ve got it.” She lifts her right leg, scooting it under the covers. Then, using her arms, she hoists her left leg up, groaning. She finally rolls over, reaching under the covers to reposition her leg slightly, and looks at Octavia.

“You’re going to be fine. You’re going to get through this.”

Octavia somewhat disagrees, but she doesn’t feel like starting shit tonight, so she simply replies, “Okay.”

She’s exhausted from crying, and when she falls asleep, she ends up shifting over till she’s the little spoon against Raven. The Latina wraps her arms around Octavia in her sleep, and there’s a little bit of peace amidst all the shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're enjoying this, give it a kudos or leave a comment below! What would you like to see happen next?


	3. Lincoln

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mention of rape.

Lincoln sucks at self-care. Like he really, really sucks. Currently he’s on a tirade to himself about what a fucking loser he is for wanting to use drugs again after all this time. He’s been clean for 5 years, and it sucks. All he can think about is using. Throughout high school, his mom had been dying. He wasn’t exactly sure how someone could be dying for 3 years, but she was. She had pain pills she didn’t want to use. He had emotional pain. He remembers night after night of crushing and snorting them while she fought for her life.

When his aunt forced him into rehab, the crash was hard. He hates what he was like then. Hates the way people were scared of him. He didn’t want that again, so he didn’t use again after he finally got out of withdrawal. But damn, it’s hard. It’s worse when he finds out Raven is taking the same kind of pills, and they’re just sitting in the girls’ bathroom and he wants  _ so  _ bad to just take a couple. She wouldn’t even notice. But he doesn’t. 

Octavia is withering, and he hates it. He tries to comfort her, hold her hand and tell her how much he loves her. But it doesn’t seem to help. It makes him feel inadequate and that makes him want to use all the more. It’s like watching someone dying again.

And then there’s the whole aspect of his sexuality. He’s demisexual, and he loves Octavia Blake. He had only had sex with one other girl before he met her. It’s something he only enters into when he really, really likes someone. And now he wants to do it with Octavia. And he wants to tell her that, but he doesn’t want to freak her out. And he wants to try stuff with her, but he also is scared that she’ll move too fast or he’ll move too fast and he’s just scared in general. He also just doesn’t feel like now is the best time for them. She’s so dulled and wrecked most of the time from her depression and anxiety that he feels like it would be like raping her if he tried to have sex with her now. It’s like she’s drunk or high; he’s not sure if she’d be fine with sex when she’s in a better mood, and so he certainly doesn’t want to try anything now. But at the same time, he really, really wants to have sex with her.

He’s at their apartment, and he’s itching to go to the bathroom and just take a couple of damn pills. But then Octavia’s crying again, and he feels like a fucking monster for wanting to get high when his girlfriend is suicidal. He’s also noticed that Raven is acting… weird. She’s weirdly okay with everything, and he expected her to be really depressed. She found out like 3 weeks ago that she’s most likely permanently disabled, but according to Octavia she hasn’t cried at all, and she seems oddly chill for someone who’s clearly in a lot of pain, emotional and physical. 

The latina emerges from her room, limping heavily as she walks over to the couch.

“How’s she doing?”

He sighs. He wishes he could say she was doing better. But the fact is, she’s not getting better. It’s been months of the same; her wanting to die; him and Raven trying to convince her that she’s worth something; her having freak out after freak out, panic attack after panic attack. The fact is, he’s worried she might not get better. She’s on her 4th trial of antidepressants this year. Her doctor has talked about her doing inpatient, but Octavia lost her shit when he suggested it, so they’ve tried other ways. Lots of counseling, lots of walks and check-ins with Lincoln and her dad.

“The same,” he says finally.

Octavia makes a noise deep in her throat, burying her face in his shirt.

“Shh, it’s okay. Did she eat breakfast this morning?”

Raven shakes her head.

“O, you need to eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.” Her voice is hoarse and she sounds congested.

“How about some soup? That’ll go down easy.”

She sighs. 

Raven starts to get up, but gasps, sitting back down and shuttering.

“You okay?”

She lets out a shaky breath. “Sorry. My hip is acting up.”

He gets up, Octavia sniffling as he leaves her, and goes to the kitchen, finding a can of tomato soup in the cupboard and dumping it into a saucepan. Going to the fridge, he gets some milk and fills up the empty can, then dumps this into the pan as well.

“Rae, how’s the physical therapy going?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

He pulls cheese and butter from the fridge and some bread from the counter and begins assembling some grilled cheese sandwiches, putting a frying pan on the stove top.

“Smells great,” Raven says, flipping through channels and keeping an eye on Octavia, who has her head buried in her hands.

“How many grilled cheeses do you want, Raven?”

“Oh, I’m not hungry.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I think I’m getting sick or something. I just haven’t had much of an appetite.”

Octavia looks up at her thoughtfully, but says nothing.

“Huh. Alright. Tae, you want one or two?”

“One.” She says hoarsely.

“Okay.”

_____________________________________________________________________

A few nights later, he’s at the girls’ apartment, and Octavia has fallen asleep next to him. He just found out he got a D on a recent exam, and feels like shit. Raven’s in her room, as she seems to be more and more often. He needs to pee, and carefully slides out from under Octavia before going into the bathroom. There are those damn pills again. He keeps on reaching for them, and then pulling back his hand. It’s inevitable, isn’t it? There’s no way he’s going to stay clean for the rest of his life. He might as well use right now, while he’s in college, while everyone uses, than wait. He reaches for the bottle again, and starts to open it when a knock on the door makes him jump. He carefully sets the bottle down, and says “Sorry, I’ll be right out.” He waits a second, turns the faucet on for a few seconds, then turns it off and exits the bathroom.

“Are we going to need the plunger?” Raven asks smugly.

“Uh, I don’t think so.”

“Good.”

_________________________________________________________________

He can’t go over to O’s for the next three days because his professor gave him an extra credit opportunity that he needs in order to get a C in the class. He feels guilty, but he can’t lose his football scholarship, and part of the requirements include keeping his GPA up.

Luckily, his apartment is completely barren of anything he could get high off of, so even though he’s stressed, it’s not a temptation.

He finally finishes the paper at 3AM on Monday morning, submitting it to the online drop box before falling asleep for the next 12 hours. 

That evening he goes to Octavia and Raven’s apartment and brings Vietnamese takeout. When he gets there, Octavia is actually having a better day and wears something other than sweatpants and sits at the table. 

“Rae, I got you orange chicken,” Lincoln says, setting plates on the table.

“Oh. Um, you know I’m kind of full from lunch.”

“You sure?” It feels like he never sees her eat anything.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says bruskly, grabbing a plate and loading it up with food.

He and Octavia end up engaged in conversation, and Raven slips away like she does frequently. He keeps feeling like he should check on her, but she’s not his girlfriend. He doesn’t want to intrude, and is sure that her leg is making things really hard, emotionally. She just needs some time and she’ll be okay, right?

  
  
  



	4. Raven

Raven isn’t coping well with the fact that she has a disability that’s likely permanent. She’s losing weight because her binges have become smaller and smaller amounts of food, and she purges every day, often multiple times a day. She’s started skipping breakfast and often lunch and sometimes dinner. She’s started to hate the feeling of any food in her stomach. Octavia has mentioned several times that she looks sick and tired, but Raven waves it off. She’s fine. Her leg is awful, but she feels okay. Her emotions are dulled and she feels mellow and like she can actually sort of handle things even though her doctor gave her the paperwork to get a long term disability parking pass. She hasn’t cried in over 4 months. Her grades are slipping, but she thinks she can get them up by the end of the semester. She just has to focus.

Because Octavia has been a mess, it’s easier for Raven’s behavior to go unnoticed. But Lincoln has been picking up on things a little too much. He’s over at their apartment studying on the couch when she gets home from class. When she takes off her leather jacket, leaving her in a tank top, and trudges into the living room, Lincoln looks up at her. 

“Rae, are you eating enough? You’re looking kind of scrawny.”

_ Shit. _

“How would you know? Anyway, I’m watching what I eat, since I can’t work out right now.”

“All I’ve seen you eat lately is yogurt and oatmeal.”

_ They’re both easy to purge. _

“You need more protein. More calories.”

“Whatever, mom.”

She walks away, but  _ shit.  _ She’s got to be more careful.

_____________________________________________________________________

  
  


She’s at physical therapy again, and is feeling absolutely hopeless.

“Just 3 more reps, Raven.”

She’s doing exercises to improve the stability of her right leg, and frankly, she’s terrible at them. 

“Two more… Okay, you’re done.” Abby says as Raven catches her breath. She starts seeing gray spots in her vision, and leans on the bench for support.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“You’re white as a sheet. Here, why don’t you sit down.”

She nods and sits down on the bench.

“Raven, you’re looking thin. Are the pain meds making you sick?”

“No. I just haven’t been super hungry.”

“Have you stepped on a scale lately?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Still dizzy?”

“I’m good now.”

“Okay, we’ve got a scale in another room. Come on.”

“Really, Abby. I’m fine.”

“I want to know how much weight you’ve lost.”

“Seriously?” She asks, hoping the physical therapist will just drop it.

“Yes.”

Raven walks along behind Abby, and the physical therapist has her take off her brace before she steps on the scale.

“That’s almost 20 pounds, Raven. You’ve lost almost 20 pounds.”

_ Raven knows. Of course she knows. But she’s not going to say that. _

“Shit, really?”

“Yes. That’s concerning, Raven. I want you to make an appointment with your general physician to get checked out.”

“Okay, I will.” She says, lying through her teeth.

“Good. Go home, get some rest, and for god’s sake, eat something.”

She nods and limps out of the office, a little proud that people are finally noticing, but also terrified they’ll make her stop.

___________________________________________________________________

Octavia is actually having a good week, and it makes Raven crazy because it gets in the way of her plans. She doesn’t purge much that week, but she doesn’t eat much either. Lincoln must have said something to O, because she keeps asking if she wants something to eat.

Then on Friday night she drags Raven out to a pizza place and insists on her eating some of the pizza she orders and then Raven  _ has  _ to purge. She goes into a stall in the bathroom and scrapes a fingernail on the back of her tongue. She’s almost done when she hears a soft sob. She quickly flushes the toilet, wiping her mouth and standing up. Her vision goes black, but she braces herself on the walls of the stall and it slowly comes back. When she opens the door, Octavia is standing two feet from the stall.

“You’re doing it on purpose.” There are tears rolling down her cheeks and she looks angry and hurt and scared all at the same time.

“O…”

“I can’t believe it.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Yes it is.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, Raven. You have a problem.”

“I have a lot of problems, sunshine,” she says wryly.

“You have a  _ disorder. _ You’re hurting yourself.”

“ You know, you’re not doing so hot yourself.”

“This has been for a while, hasn’t it?”

“Just leave me alone.”

“I think that’s the opposite of what you need.”

“Please just stop.” She pushes Octavia out of the way as she limps out of the bathroom. She doesn’t have a ride home, but she sits outside on the bench for 20 minutes till Octavia finally comes out. They don’t talk on the ride home.

That night, Octavia slips into Raven’s room, where she’s laying on her bed, scrolling on her phone.

“Rae?”

“What?” She doesn’t turn toward her.

“I’m sorry I reacted so strongly. Can we talk?”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“We  _ need  _ to.”

“I just need some space, okay? Just give me some time. I’ll stop and be fine. I just need you to be patient.”

“Okay.”

____________________________________________________________________________

  
  


The next day, Octavia comes home from class and Raven is scarfing down a sandwich. It’s not a lot of food, but when she looks up and sees Octavia, she bolts toward the bathroom. Octavia drops her backpack and hurries to block her path.

“Raven, stop!”

Since Raven’s leg impedes her movement, O is able to block her before she reaches the bathroom.

“O, I need to use the bathroom.”

“No. This needs to stop. Your body can’t sustain this.”

“Mind your own fucking business.”

“I will when you stop hurting yourself.”

Raven starts crying.

“Just let me go. Please! Please, I can’t deal with this.”

The girls are the same height, and since Octavia has been working out lately and Raven can’t, O has an edge on her. It doesn’t mean Raven isn’t fighting her.

“I’m not going to let you go. It’s okay. You’re going to be fine.”

Raven is crying and straining against Octavia’s grasp, and they slide to the floor, Raven’s brace clunking against the wood.

“You’re okay,” Octavia says again, wrapping her arms around Raven’s shivering body. She can feel her ribs and shoulder blades and spine and it makes her feel sick. 

“You’re alright.”

“No.”

“Just relax. You’re fine.”

Gradually, Raven calms down to slow and steady crying. 

“Rae, let’s go to your room.”

The latina slowly rises and Octavia keeps a firm grip around her waist as they make their way to her room. She takes off her brace and scoots onto the bed. Octavia moves to lay beside her, wrapping an arm around her. After a few minutes, she whimpers.

“You’re fine, Rae.”

“I need to get rid of it.” She says softly.

“No you don’t.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Rae, when did this start?”

She sighs. “I had issues in high school. But I got over it. No one wants a foster kid that comes with that.”

“Were you ever diagnosed?”

“EDNOS. In other words, I was fucked up but they did’t have a nice neat label for me.”

“Did you ever get treatment?”

“What is this, twenty questions?”

“No. I just… did you?”

“I went and saw a counselor for a while. That did jack squat to help me. I just kind of muscled through it and got over it.”

“Apparently, you didn’t get over it.”

“I’m fine, Octavia.”

“No you’re not.”

“I’m just upset. With my leg and everything. I’ll get over it, and it’ll be fine again.”

“I want you to go see a counselor again.”

“It won’t do any good.”

“How do you know?”

“Sunshine, I was in counseling all the time in foster care. It never helped.”

“Then maybe you should go to something more intensive.”

“O stop.”

“I’m serious. Maybe you should go to a treatment center.”

“I don’t need that. Besides, I’m an adult. I can do what I want.”

“Rae, you could die.”

“Just… get out of my bed.”

“Rae--”

“OUT.” She yells, and Octavia obliges her, storming out. Raven bursts into tears. She doesn’t want Octavia breathing down her neck about this; she just wants to be left to her own devices. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are enjoying this story so far, please leave a comment below! Tell me what you like and what you'd like to see happen next.


	5. Octavia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: graphic depictions of self-harm. Read at your own risk.

Octavia isn’t coping well. She’s trying not to cut. She’s actually trying because she actually hasn’t been as suicidal for the last week and she wants to go further with Lincoln, and maybe she has enough scars. But it’s so fucking hard. There is no conceivable way to get rid of everything she could cut with, because she could cut with almost anything. It’s been 15 days, and she needs a release, but she distracts herself as much as she can.

Raven isn’t well at all. Terrified her friend is going to pass out or something, Octavia constantly hovers over Raven, setting her on edge.

“Rae, I’m going to Lincoln’s. Eat something, will you?”

Raven responds with a glare, and Octavia leaves. Driving to Lincoln’s apartment, she realizes that she doesn’t feel as tempted as she normally does to veer into traffic. It’s kind of startling that she doesn’t really want to die, at least right now. When she gets there, Miller--Lincoln’s roommate-- is just leaving.

“Hey, O.”

“Hey. Headed out to see Bryan?”

“Yup. See you later.”

“See ya.”

When Lincoln opens the door after she knocks, she springs toward him, kissing him.

“Wow. You’re in a good mood.”

“Just miss spending time with you alone.” She says briefly, going back to making out with him. She needs a distraction, and he's the perfect kind.

Walking backward, Lincoln keeps an arm behind Octavia, pulling her into his apartment as he shuts the door and kisses her neck.

“How’s your day been?” She asks, giggling as he kisses her neck.

“Good. Got a lot done,” he says, a bit breathless.

“Me too.” She says, pulling him back up to kiss her lips. She can’t let it go too far; she’s still got too-recent cuts marring her stomach and he doesn’t know she still cuts. She pulls back.

“So, you ready for the gym?”

He nods. It’s winter, and too cold outside to spend a lot of time running, so they go to the university gym together frequently. He pulls on a coat and they go outside to Octavia’s car.

At the gym, Lincoln holds the punching bag steady as Octavia aims her punches.

“So Raven’s not so good right now.” She says, grunting as she hits the bag.

“What’s wrong?”

“She’s skinny as fuck. And, well, she’s doing it on purpose.”

“She is?”

“Yeah. I caught her,” she throws two punches, “in the bathroom on Friday night. She was making herself throw up.”

“Shit.”

“I know. And then yesterday,” she punches the bag hard, “I came home and she was eating something, and she started running to the bathroom to throw it up. I didn’t know what to do. I had to physically intervene. But I can’t be there all the time.”

“Of course not.”

“I just,” she grunts, throwing several punches, “don’t know what to do. I’m scared.”

“Do you think Monty and Jasper have noticed?” Those two are mutual friends and Jasper is in the same major as Raven.

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“We could have an intervention.”

“Yeah. I don’t know how effective that would be. She’s so damn stubborn.”

“How about we just go to my place on Wednesday night? You drive so she can’t go anywhere, and we’ll have dinner and talk.”

“Okay.”

_______________________________________________________________________

It’s Tuesday night, and Octavia is anxious as fuck. She’s trying so hard to just let her cuts heal and not do anything, but she can feel herself racing toward a panic attack. Raven is in her room, and she doesn’t want to bother her, but she knows if she’s by herself much longer, things are going to get bad.

“Rae?” She says softly, knocking on her roommate’s door. She hears the thump of Raven’s bum leg hitting the floor, then slow halting footsteps, and finally the door is opening.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry to bother you.”

“It’s fine.”

“I just…” she wrings her hands, looking down.

“Come on, I’ll make you some tea.”

Octavia stays close by Raven’s side while she puts fresh water in the kettle and turns on the burner.

“Did something particular set you off?”

It had been thinking about talking with Raven about her purging, but Octavia isn’t going to say that. She sees Raven’s hand subconsciously snake up to rub her protruding collarbone, and Octavia gets lost in panic for a second.

“Hey, O.”

She blinks.

“Sorry.” She feels distraught that Raven’s gotten so terribly skinny and that she can’t do anything about it even though she feels completely responsible. And she hates that Raven is the one who is taking care of her, when she herself should probably be in the hospital for her issues. Octavia starts crying, and she hates it. It’s probably better than feeling nothing, which she has for the last couple of months, but anxiety isn’t exactly a great alternative.

“Hey, sit down.” Raven says, guiding her toward the table. Octavia clutches Raven’s arm, which is like a toothpick. She feels worse, and starts sobbing inconsolably.

“Shhh, you’re okay.”

She wants to cut; needs the pain. Raven reaches and starts rubbing her shoulders, working out the tension.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Octavia knows it’s really not going to be; not the way things stand anyway. The kettle is screeching, and the noise is stressing her out.

“Can you, um…” She waves her hand toward the kettle, and Raven stops rubbing her shoulders, moving to make the tea. Octavia has started to feel nauseous from her anxiety.

When Raven brings the tea over and hands the mug to her, she says “Do you want to talk about what’s wrong?”

She doesn’t. All she wants to do is cut. But she also feels guilty about wanting to cut. And she knows if Raven finds out that she’s been cutting, she won’t take her seriously about telling her to get help, and that stresses her out and makes her want to cut more. The cyclical thinking is making her even more nauseated, and she thinks she might throw up.

Pushing away from the table, she stands and stumbles toward the bathroom, closing the door before leaning over the toilet. Nothing comes up, but that doesn’t mean she feels better. She remembers suddenly that Raven has made herself throw up in this toilet; probably a lot. And then she can’t handle it anymore. She really just can’t. Crawling to the tub, she grabs her razor from the ledge. Normally, she would pull it apart, but she needs relief. Now. She pulls her shirt up and slides the waistband of her leggings down, and blades meet skin. It’s weird using a whole razor head, because she doesn’t have a lot of control over the deepness or placement of the cuts. But it’s kind of exciting. It doesn’t hurt enough, though. It’s a fresh razor head, and it cuts too easily. She digs into her skin further, dipping a finger in the blood and holding it up near her face. It should be helping. Why isn’t it helping? Digging the razor in again, she runs the blades over the same area several times until there’s blood dripping steadily downward. She should clean up; shouldn’t get blood on the floor or on her pants. and wipes upward with a hand, staring at the red now covering her palm and parts of her fingers. Suddenly there’s a knock on the door.

“Octavia, are you okay?” It’s Lincoln’s voice.  _ Shit.  _ She tries to answer, but knowing he’s right there makes anxiety bubble up her throat, taking her voice. The only sound she makes is a sort of choking noise.

“O, I’m coming in.” She realizes as the door handle turns that she didn’t lock the door. He’s coming in. He’s going to see. She whips her shirt down, trying to hide everything.

“Octavia, what--” Then he sees her blood covered hand, and the blood soaking through her shirt. “Oh god.” He rushes to kneel next to her, and she freezes, unsure of what to do. She was supposed to be done cutting. He was never supposed to see. She wanted to stop for him. He pulls her now bloodstained shirt up, and sees all the fresh cuts and all the scars. Well, not all of them. There are some covered by her leggings. It’s years of marks. He quickly grabs a towel from a hook and presses it against her side so hard it hurts.

“‘S gonna stain,” she mumbles. She’s kind of out of it from the endorphins rushing through her and doesn’t know what else to say.

“We need to stop the bleeding, O. You're hurt.”

She shrinks away, face contorting as she sobs.

Neither of them hear Raven approach until she whispers “What the hell?” in the doorway. Octavia feels like she’s actually dying, she’s so humiliated and anxious. She starts hyperventilating and her hands ball into fists.

“How long has this been happening? I thought you stopped years ago?”

She can’t answer, can’t look at either of them.

“I don’t think she ever stopped,” Lincoln murmurs, still pressing the towel to her wounds.

“How fucking hypocritical. Telling me to stop hurting myself, and here you are.” Raven spits before limping away.

There’s too much to process and she’s too overwhelmed and things get kind of hazy with the amount of panic she’s in. She wishes she could just black out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment if you're enjoying reading this story!


	6. Raven and Lincoln

“Octavia, can you try to breathe with me?” Lincoln’s trying to get her to look at him, but she won’t.

“Raven, a little help!” He calls.

She comes limping back toward the bathroom.

“What?”

“She needs her meds.”

Raven nods and goes to Octavia’s purse in the entryway. She comes back with lorazepam and a glass of water. 

Octavia takes the meds and won’t look at Lincoln as he carefully bandages her cuts. He convinces her to leave the bathroom and go to the living room, where she curls up under a blanket. Lincoln turns on the Office and cuddles with her till she eventually falls asleep. He then extricates himself and heads toward her room.

“You gonna check for sharps?” Raven asks.

He nods. “By the way, what the hell was that?”

“What?”

“Yelling at your friend while she was bleeding on the floor?”

“I was just…” She trails off. “Shit. That was bad, wasn’t it?”

“Ya think?”

She sighs.

“It’s probably what made her panic attack so bad.”

Raven sighs, burying her face in her hands. “I didn’t think. I just… I was mad.”

“You had better fucking apologize when she wakes up.”

“I will. God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Will you keep an eye on her?”

She nods and they part ways.

Lincoln checks under Octavia’s bed, in the back of her nightstand drawer, between book pages. He finally sees a sock shoved behind a box in the back of the shelf in her closet. It’s full of something heavy. When he pulls out the pack of razor blades, his heart sinks. 

______________________________________________________________________________

Raven watches Octavia for a long time before sitting down on the couch next to her and stroking a piece of hair out of her face. The girl’s face scrunches up, and then she’s opening her eyes.

“Hey,” Raven says softly.

“Hey.”

She moves to get up, and Raven puts an arm on her shoulder to stop her. “You’re fine. It’s okay, just relax.”

“You know, you were right. I’m a hypocrite” Octavia murmurs.

“No. No I was not fucking right. I was horrible. I had no right to treat you like that.” She swallows thickly. “There must be something really wrong with me for me to treat my best friend like that.”

“It’s fine.”

“No it’s not. I--you were having a panic attack and all I could think about was myself.”

“I forgive you, okay? Now let’s stop talking about this.” She says wearily.

“Sure, okay.”

“Where’s Lincoln?”

“He’s… He’ll be back.”

“He’s in my room, isn’t he?”

She sighs, nodding.

Octavia starts crying again as her anxiety about the situation hits her. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Raven wraps an arm around her, avoiding the places she knows her wounds are. “You’re going to be okay.”

Octavia scoots into Raven’s arms, soaking in the embrace.

___________________________________________________________________

He hears talking in the other room, and goes to put the razors in his coat to dispose of later before moving back into the living room. The latina is curled around Octavia, who’s awake and crying.

“Hey.”

She just lets out a shaky little sigh, and he gets on the couch on the other side of Octavia, reaching for one of her cold hands as she turns toward him.

“I don’t want to talk right now,” Octavia says quietly.

“We don’t have to right now. Tomorrow I’m making dinner, and you two will come over and we’ll talk. About everything,” he says, shooting a look at Raven, who darts her eyes up quickly. They end up all falling asleep on the couch, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world for them to all be together, soaking in each other’s comfort.

_______________________________________________________________________

As agreed upon, they don’t bring stuff up with each other the next day until dinner. Raven doesn’t eat breakfast or lunch, and Octavia doesn’t say anything. Octavia shuts herself in her room for hours, and Raven doesn’t say anything. 

Dinner is quite the experience. Lincoln makes spaghetti, meatballs, garlic bread, and caesar salad. 

“So…” Lincoln says as they sit down. “Let’s talk.”

“Raven, we’re worried about you.” Octavia blurts out.

“Why do I have to be first?”

“Because you started having problems sooner.”

“Not true, if you never actually stopped cutting.”

“Fine. Let’s talk about me then.” She says with a sigh.

“Are you at least being honest with your therapist?”

“About cutting?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“Octavia, how’s she supposed to help you if she doesn’t know what’s going on?”

“I just… I don’t want her to freak out. Like you guys did.”

“I guess that’s fair,” says Lincoln. “But now that we know, she should too.”

“Why do you do it?” 

“I need it. I need the pain. I don’t have to think about anything else when I'm doing it.”

“Couldn’t you do something less destructive? Doesn’t boxing give you pain without you risking infection and bleeding out?”

“It’s not the same. It helps, but… there’s nothing that really replaces it.”

Lincoln pipes in “Are you willing to be honest with your counselor?”

She sighs. “I can try it.”

“Okay. And would you be willing to come to us if you feel the need to cut?”

She looks down, turning a bit red. “I can’t promise anything.”

“Just try your best.”

Nodding, Octavia turns to Raven.

“Alright, are we good?”

She nods.

“Let’s talk about you now.”

They’ve both noticed that Raven has barely touched her food.

“You need to gain some weight.”

“No I don’t.”

“Rae, how much do you weigh right now?”

“None of your business.”

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“I’m not.”

“Rae, come here.” Lincoln says, getting up from the table. She follows him while he leads her to the bathroom, and he gestures toward the scale. 

“You should probably take off your brace.”

She looks up pleadingly, but he just sighs. Slowly, she unclasps the brace, and he steadies her shoulders while she pulls it off. 

“Just don’t… react. Okay?” 

“Okay.”

Knowing she can’t walk at all without her brace, he helps her hop over, then lifts her onto the scale. The number settles well under what it should be. He doesn’t know her exact height, but knows anyone who isn’t a child should weigh more. Lincoln breathes slowly, trying not to react. 

“Okay, let’s go back to the kitchen,” he says calmly. He takes her off the scale and she pulls her brace back on, clasping it. Finally, they leave the bathroom and make their way back to the kitchen.

“Well?” Octavia asks.

“Well, she’s definitely underweight.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“O, chill a little bit, okay?”

She nods.

“Rae, how do you feel about trying counseling?” Lincoln asks.

“It’s not going to work.”

“Just… try.” Octavia says.

“Fine.”

“I also think you need to see a doctor.” She says. 

“Why?”

“Because you’ve been starving and making yourself throw up. Your body isn’t healthy.”

Raven sighs. “Fine.”

“And I want to come with you.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll go, but I want my body to speak for itself. I don’t need you freaking out.”

“I just want the doctor to get  _ all  _ the information.”

“Please, just… Meet me halfway here. I said I’d go.”

Octavia looks over at Lincoln, and he nods.

“Fine.”

________________________________________________________________________

That weekend, they all end up going to a party at Monty and Jasper’s house. They’re all still a little tense, and need to blow off some steam. Octavia goes straight for the jello shots, while Raven downs 3 shots of whiskey and goes out to mingle.

Meanwhile, Lincoln goes out to the yard with some of his football buddies. Russ, the linebacker is snorting something off the glass table, and Lincoln feels a pang in his chest. His hands start shaking. None of these guys know how he used to be. Making his way to the table, he sits down. 

“Hey, uh, got any more where that came from?”

“Sure, buddy.” The guy pulls out a bag of pills.

__________________________________________________________________________-

Raven gets talking with a tall, attractive woman named Anya, who’s going into communication and political science. They’re really connecting, and after 45 minutes, she asks “You wanna go somewhere quieter? It’s pretty loud out here.”

“Sure.”

When they get back to Jasper’s room, Anya sits down on the bed.

“So, you want to be a rocket scientist, huh?”

“Essentially, yeah.”

“You must be really smart.”

“Yep.”

“And confident.”

Raven smiles “true.”

“And um, really hot.”

Anya stares at her lips for a moment, glances up into her eyes, then leans in toward her, stopping a few centimeters from her lips. Raven’s breath hitches, and she dips in to meet her. Anya’s hand slides behind Raven’s back, pulling her in as she kisses her deeply before slipping her tongue into her mouth. Countering, Raven kisses her deeply and sucks on Anya’s lip. The woman brushes her hands down her side before murmuring “Fuck, you’re skinny.”

Raven just rolls her eyes and kisses her neck as Anya smiles. It doesn’t feel quite right, but Raven just wants something to focus on besides school or Octavia. Suddenly, the door flies open and Monty steps in.

“Ra--oh, sorry. But, uh Raven, you’ve gotta come. Octavia’s not good.”

“What happened?”

“Panic attack.”

“Fuck. Sorry,” she says, turning toward Anya.

“Another time, sweetheart.”

Raven gets up, feeling lightheaded, and follows Monty to the kitchen, where Harper is sitting with Octavia on the floor. Harper is the most sober of all of them. 

“What happened?”

“She did a lot of jello shots. Like, a lot.”

“So she’s drunk.”

“And panicking.”

“Where’s Lincoln?”

“Jasper’s looking for him.” Monty says.

________________________________________________________________________

Jasper finds Lincoln in the backyard, doing a line.

“I thought you were sober?” He mumbles, clapping a hand on Lincoln’s back.

“I was.” He says.

“What happened?”

“I didn’t want to be anymore.”

“What about Octavia? And school?”

“You’re not really one to judge, Jas.”

“I know. But it’s pot. What did you just take?”

“Oxy. From one of your friends.”

“Oh. Well um, Octavia is having a panic attack.”

“Oh. I should help...”

“No man, seeing you like this is not going to help her.”

“Right, yeah.” He gets up and follows Jasper toward the house.

___________________________________________________________________________

Raven slides down clumsily to sit down next to Octavia.

“Hey.”

She doesn’t respond. Her head is buried in her knees, and she’s taking shallow, gaspy breaths.

“O, try to slow down your breathing.”

Raven puts a hand on her back, and this makes Octavia tense up and breathe even more quickly.

“Shit. Where the fuck is Lincoln?” She pulls out her phone and sends him a quick,  **Get to the ktchn now, o is having a bad panic attack.**

She can’t calm Octavia down, and she’s worried the girl is going to pass out. 

“You’re going to get through this, O. You’re okay.”

“I just wanted to feel better.” She says despondently.

“I know.”

“But I just feel hot and dizzy and worse.”

“Let’s go home, okay?”

Harper helps Raven and Octavia up and calls them a cab. Pretty soon after they make it home, Octavia gets up and bolts to the bathroom. Raven follows behind, slower and clumsier. It feels hard for her to breathe, but she ignores it. Her roommate is throwing up, and she gathers her hair, taking the ponytail holder out of her own hair to hold Octavia’s. 

“It’s okay,” she murmurs. 

Octavia groans.

After a half hour, Raven realizes Octavia’s going to need to stay near the toilet tonight.

“O, I’ll be right back.”

“Okay.”

She goes to the living room, grabbing a couple of pillows and blankets off the couch, then goes back into the bathroom and puts them on the floor. Octavia is still draped over the toilet.

“Hey, come here. Try to just sleep for a little bit.”

Octavia drags herself off the toilet seat and settles her head in Raven’s lap. The latina smirks and rubs Octavia’s back as she shuts her eyes and her breath evens out. She hates that the girl is sick, but this feels good and right, and suddenly she realizes this is what she was missing with Anya. Sure, there was chemistry, but nothing like her bond with Octavia. But O has a boyfriend. And Lincoln is so wonderful and kind and different from her. He has many qualities she’ll never possess and treats O so well. They’re so nice together. And really, he treats her so well, too. He knows how to calm her and talk to her in a way that Octavia can’t. She doesn’t want to hurt either of them, and she’s filled with conflicting emotions of fear and love and the unsettling feeling that she wants to somehow be with Octavia without tearing her apart from Lincoln. She’s exhausted, and after a few more minutes of rubbing Octavia’s back, she lowers herself to the ground, propping her head on a pillow, and pulling Octavia’s head to rest on her abdomen as she begins to drift off.


	7. Raven, Lincoln, and Octavia

Raven hasn’t eaten in 4 days. Her doctor’s appointment is in a week, and she’s been trying to figure out ways to feign better health, but she’s also terrified that she’s not going to be allowed to eat (or not eat) the way she wants to anymore, so she’s been controlling herself as much as possible while she still can. She’s jittery from the 6 cups of coffee she’s had as she drives to Lincoln and Miller’s apartment. They’re all going to watch The Walking Dead season finale together, but O is walking over from her evening class. Her arm falls asleep while she’s driving and she has to shake it until it finally wakes up, tingling. Miller says his car is acting up, and she wants to help him with it before the show starts. 

She hasn’t fixed anything in a while, as most of her classes are still theoretical at this point and she hasn’t been up to any big projects because of her leg. It’s exciting to actually be  _ doing  _ something. High off her hunger, she focuses deeply on fixing the problem. It turns out, his spark plugs are old, and she lets him know, then goes to the bathroom to wash up.

“Hey, want some spaghetti?” Miller calls from the kitchen, “There’s extra.”

“I’m good.” She yells. She’s got a headache, and her fingers are tingly.  _ It’s normal. It’s fine.  _

Moving is making her dizzy. Really dizzy. She stumbles to sit down on the couch by Lincoln.

“Rae, you should eat something.” Lincoln says quietly. Miller has noticed that she’s positively skeletal, but Lincoln hasn’t told him how bad she is, so they aren’t overly loud about it. 

“I’m not hungry.”

“Liar. When is your first appointment with that counselor again?”

“In two weeks.”

“It’s going to be easier if you at least try.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I know. But--”

Just lay off, Lincoln.”

“Rae, please”

“Maybe I should go,” she says, getting up.

“Wait-- Rae...”

She limps a few paces toward the door, but she suddenly black dots invade her vision. Her hand slides against the wall as she tries to decide whether or not she’s going to pass out. There’s pressure in her chest and a rushing noise in her ears. Everything seems to be tilting and growing dark. Something’s  _ wrong. _

“Raven?” Lincoln says.

“My chest hurts,” she grits out, bending over.

“Hey--”

“Can’t breathe,” she utters before slipping to the floor.

“Raven!” He rushes over to kneel beside her.

Miller comes into the living room.

“What happened? Is she okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is she breathing?”

“I don’t--I don’t know.” Lincoln says. He’s high on some downers he got from a friend of a friend, but Miller doesn’t know that. His roommate quickly kneels beside Raven, grabbing her wrist and feeling for her pulse. His eyebrows knit together, and he quickly reaches up to try to find her pulse on her neck.

“I can’t find a pulse. Call 911.”

“Oh no. Oh no.”

“Lincoln, go!”

“Right, yeah.” He gets up and grabs his phone, fumbling to unlock it.

Miller pulls Raven’s limp body so she’s flat on the floor. He’s a little rusty on his CPR, but he had to learn it in high school. Putting one hand on Raven’s sternum, he layers his other on top, and pushes down on her chest, counting.

“One, two…” On the fifth, there’s a succession of crunching noises and the compressions get easier. He winces and continues.

Lincoln is on the phone with 911.

“Um, my friend. She’s not breathing and her heart’s not beating. Please, you have to come. Um… our address, it’s… um, it’s...Damn it. Miller?”

“138 Cobalt,” he says quickly. “Apartment 4.”

He repeats this shakily. “Yeah, my roommate is doing CPR.”

It takes the ambulance what feels like years to get there, and Miller continues doing CPR. When the EMTs take over, one of them pulls out a defibrillator.

“Oh god,” Lincoln mumbles as an EMT cuts Raven’s shirt and applies little electrodes to her chest. Someone says “clear” like they’re on fucking Grey’s Anatomy, and Lincoln and Miller watch as Raven’s bony body jolts. Someone puts a mask with a big bulb at the end over Raven’s mouth and they’re squeezing it, pumping air into her. It’s all so weird, it doesn’t feel real. Lincoln goes in the ambulance while Miller waits for Octavia to arrive. They tried to call her, but she’s in class with her phone on silent. If they leave her a message, she’ll probably have a panic attack and won’t be able to get there safely anyway.

When she finally gets there, he’s sitting on the couch with his head in his hands.

“Hey Miller, where are the others? The show starts in 10 minutes.”

“They’re um… they’re at the hospital.”

“What? Why?”

“Octavia, Raven had some sort of heart attack or something. She collapsed and she didn’t have a pulse. I had to give her CPR until an ambulance got here. Lincoln’s with her now.”

“Oh god. Oh no.” 

“Do you want me to drive you to the hospital?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

The drive is tense, and Miller’s hands are white-knuckled, gripping the steering wheel. Octavia doesn’t know what to do with the adrenaline that’s rushing through her body, and she settles for bouncing her legs and rubbing her face absentmindedly.

_____________________________________________________________________

When they get there and find Lincoln, he tells them he doesn’t know anything.

“She doesn’t have any family, does she?” He asks Octavia.

“No.”

A nurse comes out. “Lincoln, did you find anything about her next of kin?”

“I’m Octavia Blake, her emergency contact,” She says quickly. “What’s happening?”

“Raven went into cardiac arrest. We’ve stabilized her, but she’s at risk for her heart to stop again. Is she on any medication that would affect her heart?”

“The only medication she’s on is oxycontin for chronic pain in her leg”

“Octavia, an electrolyte imbalance caused Raven’s heart to go into an arrhythmia, which is an unusual heart rhythm, and her heart stopped. That was resolved with defibrillation and a few injections. The problem is, Raven’s heart muscle is very weak. It needs to get stronger, or she’s going to go into heart failure. She also has 5 broken ribs, which are a result of the CPR.”

Miller gasps sharply.

“It’s okay. She likely wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t performed CPR. You did the right thing, and broken ribs are to be expected. She’ll be in pain, but she’ll recover.”

Octavia is crying and digging her nails into her jean-clad thighs.

“Octavia, is there a reason you know of why Raven is so thin? She seems to be pretty malnourished from the blood tests we did, and the weakness of her heart.”

“She’s been starving herself and making herself throw up. We’ve been trying to get her to get help.” Octavia is already breathing a bit heavily, and she knows she’s only a few minutes away from a panic attack.

“I’m so sorry. This must be difficult for you. The good news is, if we can get Raven to gain some weight and build her muscle back up, she has a good outlook.”

She nods, sitting down, and Lincoln wraps his arms around her. 

“We’ll get through this,” he says, squeezing her shoulder.

“How?” She asks, growing hysterical.

“I don’t know. Together.”

  
  


________________________________________________________________

Everything  _ hurts _ . Her chest is burning, and it hurts to breathe, and her throat feels raw and sore, and she has a headache. When Raven finally lifts her droopy eyelids, she sees Lincoln holding Octavia on a chair, rubbing her arms soothingly. She’s about to say something when she notices the tube near her face. It’s not a breathing tube. It’s yellow. She looks over and sees it’s connected to a bag with creamy liquid. That’s when she realizes it’s a feeding tube, and with that realization, her whole body jolts, sending pain rushing through her chest. She wants to pull it out and run far, far away, but all she does is start crying. Sobbing, really. Octavia looks up and gasps, hurrying to her side to hold her IV-laden hand.

“Hi. Oh my god, you’re awake. You’re alive.” She’s started crying too.

Lincoln goes to the other side of the bed. Raven starts reaching to touch the feeding tube, but he grabs her hand, rubbing her fingers gently. “You’re okay. Just try and breathe.”

Her sobs send shooting pain through her chest, and she feels hazy from the pain and panic. She gags on the tube in her throat, but takes careful breaths to avoid the undue rib pain of throwing up. Lincoln sits down on one side of her bed, while Octavia lays down next to her, moving the wires sprouting out of the top of her hospital gown out of the way. She presses herself against Raven, careful to avoid her ribs, while Lincoln gently rubs her arm.

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” Octavia whispers.

She still feels agitated and wants to stay awake, to fight. But their soothing care multiplied by the trauma her body has been through gets her to fall asleep before she can start anything.

  
  


  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness? 
> 
> For resources or support visit: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/


	8. Raven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for specific weights and calorie amounts and purging.

When she wakes up again, Octavia is curled up next to her, reading, and Lincoln is asleep on the chair. She tries to move, and groans at the pain that shoots through her chest. Octavia shifts and grabs her hand. Raven is lucid enough to realize there’s something squeezing her good leg, and she looks down to find there are blue things strapped around her legs, kneading them. She learns later that these are to prevent blood clots. There’s also a little square bag hanging from her neck. In it is some sort of machine that’s attached to wires coming out of her hospital gown. Pulling at the neckline, she finds that there are electrodes attached to various places on her chest. She still has bad chest pain every time she takes a deep breath but now she notices that she’s also bloated and has a stomach ache, which she’s sure is from the feeding tube.

“How’re you feeling?” Octavia asks.

“Great.” She deadpans.

“Do you want me to get a nurse?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Rae, we should talk.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Well, you can’t leave, so you’re just going to have to deal with it.” Octavia gets up and shakes Lincoln awake, telling him they’re going to  _ talk  _ with Raven.

“Rae, you almost died. You actually  _ were  _ dead for a couple of minutes. Your heart fucking stopped. Miller had to give you CPR. If you had been at home, you’d be dead.” 

“Look, I’m fine now. It’s going to be fine.”

Octavia is crying. “You have to get better. You can’t die. I need you, Raven. Okay? I know you’re sad about your leg and not being able to play soccer, but get the fuck over it and stop killing yourself.”

“What the fuck, Octavia. I’m not ‘sad about my leg.’ I’m disabled. I’m in pain. You don’t just get over that.”

“No! You need to stop hurting yourself. I’m so scared, Rae. I don’t care how much pain you’re in, you need to stop this.”

“Just lay off.” Raven’s clutching her chest and breathing heavily.

“No!” She’s growing hysterical.

“Lincoln, can you just… get her to be reasonable about this?” Raven begs.

“Rae, we tried to be civil and let you handle this. You don’t understand what it’s like to see someone like that. You need to listen. You need to stop.”

“And you need to get out.”

Her chest feels hot and tight and with every breath, waves of pain hit her. A nurse comes in.

“Raven, what’s going on? Your heart shouldn’t take a lot of stress right now, and it’s doing some weird things.

“Please, get them out. Get them out!”

The nurse turns toward the two of them. “You two should go. We need to keep her stable.”

“We’ll be back later.” Octavia says.

“Don’t fucking bother!” She yells after them.

“Raven, just try and calm down. Your doctor will be here soon to check up on you.”

She nods and lays her head back, glaring down at the feeding tube, which is making her stomach cramp and bloat.

A few minutes later, a man walks in the door.

“Raven, I’m Dr. Young. I’m a cardiologist. How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” she says wearily.

“I’m not surprised. Your heart stopped less than 24 hours ago and it’s still very weak.” 

“Why’s my chest hurt so bad?”

“You have several broken ribs.”

“And what’s with this?” She asks, tugging gently at the feeding tube.

“We need to talk about that. Raven, you came into the hospital with your electrolyte levels all out of whack. You’re also malnourished and underweight. You desperately need to gain some weight, which is why your nutritionist and I collaborated and decided to go ahead and have the nurses insert this feeding tube while you were unconscious. Your nutritionist is going to come see you later today, and so is one of the hospital’s psychiatrists.”

“I don’t need that.”

“Yes you do.”

She sighs. 

“Just try and rest, okay? We’ll talk more later.”

She nods. She’s exhausted, but she can’t fall asleep. She realizes it’s because she’s beginning to feel  _ wrong  _ and  _ guilty _ . She pushed away her friends. Maybe they deserved it. But she almost died on them, and everyone knows if she dies, there’s not a chance for Octavia. The girl would off herself within a year.  _ She  _ doesn’t even want to die. She just wants to… wants to… Everything’s starting to seem kind of dumb. Like yeah, her life sucks right now.  _ A lot.  _ But she’s smart and capable and resilient. She survived years of neglect from her addict of a mom, more years of being tossed around shitty foster homes. And now she can survive this disability. But not if she dies because of some stupid need for control. This needs to stop. She needs to move on. She grabs her phone and texts Octavia and Lincoln.

**Hey, I’m sorry I blew up at you guys. Why don’t you guys rest tomorrow and come visit me on Sunday?**

It takes a few minutes, but she gets replies from both of them saying they’d do just that.

_______________________________________________________________________

The nutritionist comes later that day, and the first thing she does check Raven’s weight with the bed scale. When she tells her the number, Raven wants to feel bad that she’s lost even more weight, but she can’t seem to. 

“Raven, this is an unacceptable weight for you. You need to put on at _least_ 30 lbs.”

“Shit. Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, I know maybe I need to gain a little, but 30 lbs?”

“Yes. I know the psychiatrist is coming later today, but it would be helpful for me to know now; how long has this been going on?”

“I--I don’t know.

“Ballpark.”

“Maybe around 5 months.”

“And what exactly have you been doing that has been making you lose this much weight?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

“I guess I haven’t been eating much. Um…been making myself throw up every once in a while.”

“Any over-exercising?” 

She lets out a short, bitter laugh, then says “no.”

“Laxative abuse?”

“Ew. No.”

“Are you counting calories?”

“Yeah.”

“About how many calories are you getting in a day?”

She looks down.

“It’s important to help me make sure you don’t go into something called refeeding syndrome.”

“150 to 200.”

“You know that’s not enough to live on, correct?”

She nods.

“Do you know that your brain starts to shut down on that amount?”

She nods again.

The nutritionist continues to ask her questions, and she’s getting tired and defensive and a little scared. She wants to get better… doesn’t she? But she’s not sure she can. All this time, she was sure it was her decision. Her control. Now she’s not so sure. As the nutritionist talks about a meal plan, she’s starting to panic. She wants her on over 3000 calories a day, over twice the amount she had been having in a  _ week _ lately.

The psychiatry appointment is even more disconcerting. To her surprise, her specialist, Dr. Wilson, gives her a diagnosis of Anorexia Nervosa. She had figured they would stick with EDNOS or maybe switch to bulimia. It turns out, even though Raven purges sometimes, her current “binges” aren’t considered binges to the psychiatrist, as they’re normal amounts of food for everyone else. She didn’t think she was “sick enough” for an anorexia diagnosis, and yet here she is. She’s starting to feel overwhelmed by all the information and all the change she’ll have to go through, and she wishes she hadn’t pushed Octavia and Lincoln away. Needing some comfort, she texts Harper.

**Rae: Hey, did O tell you what’s going on?”**

**Harper: Yeah. I’m sorry you’re in the hospital, but I hope it helps you.**

**Rae: Willing to take a study break and come visit the sickly?**

**Harper: Of course. I’ll come by tomorrow morning.**

**Rae: Sweet**

The night is long, and her stomach is continuing to cramp up. A little past 1am, she has to get up to pee. Her hip and ribs kill as she gets up and she has to grab onto the bed and the wall to stabilize herself. Once she’s in the bathroom, she can’t help but get stuck on the amount of calories that are pouring into her through the feeding tube. It’s too much. The doctors clearly don’t care that this is terrifying for her. All they care about is fattening her up, without regard for her emotions. She’s miserable and scared and alone. Her eyes travel to the toilet. She could stop her stomach discomfort right now. Before she can ponder it any more, she’s over the toilet making herself throw up. It’s torturous to her ribs, but her stomach discomfort is almost immediately better. Feeling high, she makes her way back to bed and sleeps a lot more soundly the rest of the night.

_____________________________________________

Harper gets there on Friday night with flowers.

“Hi,” she says, quickly approaching Raven and hugging her. It kills Raven’s ribs, but she allows it. She’s desperate for something to cling onto.

“Rae, how are you?”

“I’ve been better.”

“What are the doctors saying about your heart?”

“I can probably make a good recovery...”

“If?”

“If I gain some weight.”

“That makes sense,” she says practically.

“I guess. I just think they’re making it too big of a deal.”

“You’re  _ really  _ skinny, Rae.”

“I fucking know that, okay?” She snaps. Then, after a stunned silence, she says “sorry.”

“It’s okay. Where are Octavia and Lincoln?”

“I kinda yelled at them yesterday. We all needed a break. They’re going to come on Sunday.”

“Okay.”

They don’t talk much about anything serious. Harper does her best to distract Raven. The patient isn’t allowed to leave bed, but Harper had brought cards and they play a few rounds of poker and talk about how badly Jasper and Monty need to just fuck already.

__________________________________________________________________

Saturday morning is full of pain and very lonely. Raven requests painkillers for her broken ribs and ends up out of it for the remainder of the day.

It’s weird, but Octavia and Lincoln won’t return her texts or calls on Sunday morning. It’s mid afternoon, and she’s starting to get worried. She finally decides to text Harper. 

**Raven: Hey can you check up on O and Linc? I'm starting to get worried. They were supposed to visit me today, but they didn't show up and they aren’t answering their phones.**

**Harper: Sure thing Rae.**

**Raven: Why don't you come to the hospital first? I'll give you my keys in case something’s really wrong.**

**Harper: You really think it's that serious?**

**Raven: I honestly don’t know.**

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eating disorders take over and leave you without a say. Even though you may feel like you want to recover at some points, at other points you can struggle to even want to survive. It feels easier and better to just let it kill you. It’s not just a matter of will power; you actually have to retrain your brain. It can take years and years to change how you think and how you view your body. For help or resources visit: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/help-support/contact-helpline


	9. Harper and Monroe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of specific methods of suicide, cutting, drug use.

When Harper gets to the apartment, she knocks first. After waiting a minute, the nursing student sighs and pulls out the key Raven gave her. When she gets inside, no one is in the living room or kitchen. The door to Octavia’s bedroom is closed. Knocking on the closed door, she waits for a response, but there’s no answer.

“O, it’s Harper. Are you okay in there?” She asks loudly. There’s still no response, so she pushes the door open with some resistance. When she gets inside, she realizes the resistance was Octavia’s foot. The girl is laying on the floor. Harper quickly notices recent, bad cuts running across her wrists and arms. Nothing is bleeding, though. They must be from yesterday or the day before. 

“Octavia? Wake up.”

She opens her eyes when Harper pats her face.

“O, what happened?”

“I dunno,” she mumbles. 

She’s warm but washed out. Her pulse is fine, but when Harper pinches her skin, it’s sluggish to bounce back and she would bet her ass the girl is severely dehydrated.

“When was the last time you peed?”

“I dunno.”

“Alright, don’t try and move. I’m going to be right back.”

She goes to the kitchen and finds a gatorade in the fridge, bringing it back to the bedroom. 

“O, let’s sit you up, huh?”

She pulls Octavia up to sitting, but O’s face suddenly drains of color.

“Shit.” She lays the girl back down. A few minutes later, she tries again, slower this time. Propping Octavia up against her body, she opens the gatorade and brings it toward her mouth. Octavia whimpers.

“Tae, you’re dehydrated. We need to get some fluids in you.”

She brings the bottle to Octavia’s lips, and the girl takes a small sip before pulling her head back, choking.

“Hey, you’re okay.”

Octavia’s head lolls back against Harper’s shoulder as she lets out a weak cough.

“Shit,” Harper whispers. This might be more serious than she had thought. She realizes she’s not lucid enough to drink anything without half of it going into her lungs and pulls her cell phone out of her back pocket to look for Kane’s number. Realizing she doesn't have it, she helps Octavia lean against a dresser, then gets up, looking for O’s phone. She eventually finds it in the living room and quickly finds Kane in the contacts. She goes back to check on Octavia, who’s still letting out weak little coughs, and Kane finally answers.

“Hello, this is Marcus.”

“Kane, it’s Harper, Octavia’s friend.”

“Right, yeah. How are you?”

“I’m fine. But Octavia’s not good.”

“What’s wrong?”

“She hasn’t been taking care of herself. She’s depressed and really dehydrated. She needs to go into the ER for some fluids.”

The girl whimpers and glares up at Harper. She’s upset that she called her adoptive dad, and doesn’t want to go into the ER.

“Where’s Lincoln? Usually he calls before she gets this bad.”

“I don’t know. He’s not here.”

“Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll try to get there sometime tonight.”

“Okay. I’m going to take O into the ER.”

“Thanks Harper.”

She hangs up and looks down at Octavia.

“Alright, O, we need to bring you in.”

“I don’t want to,” Octavia whines.

“I know, but it’s not safe to try to rehydrate you here. You need an IV.” She checks her phone and notices several texts from Raven.

**Raven: What’s going on?**

**Are they mad at me?**

**Is it Octavia? Did she do something?**

**Oh god, please tell me they’re okay.**

Harper sends a quick text back.

**Octavia’s in a rough spot, but she’ll be okay.**

**Raven: What happened?**

She’s about to respond when there’s knocking at the door. She goes to answer it, and finds Lincoln, who has an odd facial expression.

“Lincoln, where have you been? Octavia is not okay.”

“Oh.” He seems kind of blissed out, and Harper takes a good look at his pupils. They’re so big she can barely see the brown outline of his iris.

“Are you high?”

“Umm… I’m fine.”

“Look, this is so not what Octavia needs right now.”

“I should be with her though. I almost let Raven die. I should make sure Octavia’s alright.”

“Lincoln, no. She does not need to feel like she needs to take care of anyone else right now. Did you drive here?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. Alright, just wait in the living room. I’m gonna call Monroe to drive you home. Do NOT get back behind the wheel.”

“Okay,” he says dejectedly.

She goes back into Octavia’s room, where the girls eyes are closed again. Harper checks her pulse and respiration, which are both stable, then gets on the phone with Monroe.

“Hey babe, it’s me.”

“What’s up?”

“Uh, Octavia’s majorly crashing But Lincoln’s a mess too and needs a ride home.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah. I’m going to have to bring her to the ER.”

“Do you need help?”

“Um, yeah. Could you come over?”

“Sure. I’ll be over in 10.”

“Thanks so much. Love you, Monroe.”

“Love you too, sweets.”

As promised, Monroe gets there after 20 minutes. Harper lets her in.

“What’s going on?”

“Lincoln is high. I guess he drove here, so he needs a ride home. I’m afraid if I leave him, he’s gonna try to drive himself.”

“Geez. I didn’t think he was that much of an idiot.”

“I know.”

“What about O?”

“She’s pretty bad.”

“Like last summer bad?”

“Like last spring break bad.”

“God.”

Their freshman year, Octavia, Monroe, Harper, and Lincoln had taken a road trip to Myrtle Beach for Spring Break. It had seemed like a good idea, but Octavia crashed unexpectedly. She wouldn’t eat or drink or get out of bed. They almost brought her in, but Lincoln was able to coax some soup into her. They didn’t leave her alone for more than a minute at a time after she told Harper she wanted to hang herself off the balcony of their hotel room.

While Monroe sits down by Lincoln, Harper pulls Octavia off the floor, drapes a coat around her shoulders, and drags her out the door.

They don’t have to wait long in the ER before a doctor see her, and shortly after, a nurse sets Octavia up with IV fluids. She has a fever and is pretty out of it. After an hour, Monroe shows up at the ER.

“Brought Lincoln home. I asked Miller to keep an eye on him. I guess Miller said he used to be an addict, so he was going to call Lincoln’s aunt. How’s Octavia?”

“Physically, getting better. But I think she might need some intervention besides just the rehydration,” she says, gesturing at bandages on Octavia’s arms.

Just then, Octavia stirs and pops an eye open.

“Hey,” Harper says, “How are you feeling?”

“Bad.”

“Well, that’s kinda what happens when you don’t take care of yourself. When was the last time you ate or drank something before I got there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think you’re going to be safe if you go home right away?”

“I don’t know.” Octavia buries her head in her hands. 

“Okay. Just rest for now, okay? Don’t worry about it.”

She nods and lets her eyes droop shut. Harper’s phone dings.

**Raven: Harper, please tell me what’s going on.**

“Shit. Monroe, could you go up to Raven’s room and tell her what’s going on?”

“Uh, sure. What room?”

“428.”

Monroe barely knows Raven. They met once, but they’ve mostly just heard about each other. She decides to go to the hospital gift store and looks around for something Raven might like. She’s a braniac; she knows that much. Deciding on a sudoku book and a Time magazine, she checks out and makes her way upstairs. When she gets to the room, Raven looks nothing like she did last time Monroe saw her. Washed out and sickly-looking, she’s got a tube going in her nose and a bunch of wires and tubes attached to her body. 

“Um, hi Raven. Harper sent me. Uh, how are you?”

“I’m fine. What the hell is happening with Octavia?”

“I guess I’m not exactly sure, but Harper said she wasn’t taking care of herself, like not eating or drinking. She’s down in the ER getting some fluids.”

“Goddamn it. Where’s Lincoln?”

“He’s at his apartment.”

“Doing what?”

“Um, he… well, he was high. Miller called his aunt. You know, because he’s an addict”

“I didn’t… I didn’t know that was a problem for him.”

“He was pretty out of it when I was with him.”

“This is my fault.” 

“Raven, I’m sure it’s not--”

“It is. I pushed them away. ” She’s struggling to keep her composure.

Monroe isn’t sure what to say. “Uh, I brought you stuff.” She says, bringing out the magazine and puzzle book. “You’ve gotta be bored.”

“Yeah, thanks.” She murmurs.

“No problem. So,” she says, sitting down, “You’re going into mechanical engineering?”

“Double majoring in that and aerospace dynamics.”

“Wow. So you want to be a rocket scientist?”

“Yeah, essentially.”

“Nice.”

Raven pulls out the sudoku book and cracks a wry smile. “Huh. So you ever do one of these?”

“Nope. I guess I figured you’d wanna exercise your mind a little.”

“Sure, that makes sense.” While she initially thinks the puzzle book is sort of dorky and old, she quickly becomes absorbed in solving one of the “black belt” level puzzles. Monroe grins, glad she picked something good for the sick young woman.

“Do you need anything else?” She asks, getting up.

“Um, just tell Harper to keep me updated or I’ll kick her ass.”

“I will. Well, feel better.”

“Thanks.”

  
  
  
  
  
  



	10. Chapter 10

Kane arrives later that evening. Octavia is sleeping so Harper slips out of the room to talk with Kane in the hallway.

“How is she?”

“She’s perking up a little.”

“Did you ever find out why Lincoln wasn’t keeping tabs on her?”

“Yeah… um, he was high.”

He nods thoughtfully. “You know he used to have issues with drugs?”

“Yeah, his roommate told Harper. He was going to call his aunt.”

“Good. She’ll make sure he’s okay. She’s the only family member who’s really been there for him.”

They go back into the room, and Octavia blinks and rubs her eyes.

“Hi sweetheart.”

“Hi.”

He gives Octavia a hug and notices her cuts when she puts an arm up. He catches her wrist and his eyes flicker over the scabbed wounds.

“How are you?” He asks, squeezing her hand before letting it go.

“Feeling a little more human now that I have some fluids in me.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Yeah, she set me up with fluids.”

“Did she talk about if she’s going to admit you?”

“No, we didn’t talk about it. I think she wanted to make sure my dehydration was under control.”

“Have you eaten something?”

“Yeah, I had some toast and applesauce.”

“Good.”

Kane thanks Harper for being there, and she and Monroe leave. The doctor comes by a while later after nursing assistants have checked her vitals a few times.

“Octavia, how are you feeling?”

“Better.”

“I’m glad. Who do you have with you?”

“This is Kane. He’s my dad.”

“Nice to meet you. Octavia, how is your emotional state? I know your friend said that a depressive episode led you to not taking proper care of yourself. And I noticed in your chart that you see Dr. Hoang for psychiatry.”

She nods.

“Are you feeling suicidal?”

“Not really. Not actively, I mean.”

“Passively?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think there was something particular that set you off? Worsened the depression?”

“My best friend is in the hospital. She’s not doing so good. But I guess it hasn’t been great for a while.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. We have a few options, depending on the level of support you need. We could admit you and you could see a psychiatrist tomorrow, do some intensive counseling, med changes, whatever the psych feels would be the best. Or if we’re all feeling confident that you’re safe enough to go home, we could have your psychiatrist arrange his schedule to see you in a few days.”

“I really don’t want to stay here.”

“I can understand that. I just want to ensure that you can take care of yourself.”

“I can stay and make sure she’s taken care of,” Kane says.

The doctor nods. “How does that sound to you, Octavia?”

She nods. “That sounds okay.”

  
  


Octavia is finally back at the apartment. Kane does the dishes while she takes a shower (more accurately, sits on the shower floor and makes a half-hearted attempt at washing her hair). Kane makes her some dinner, and Octavia reluctantly sits down at the table. All she wants to do is curl up and sleep.

“Hon, how are you feeling about going to class tomorrow?” He asks as she picks at the protein bowl he made.

“Fine.” Actually, she feels like she’s going to have a panic attack. 

“Sweetheart, we need to talk.”

“About what?”

“You need support.”

“I have support.”

“Your roommate is in the hospital and your boyfriend is in withdrawal.”

“What?!” Octavia’s fork clatters to the table.

“Oh honey... I thought you knew.”

“He’s… How long?”

“How long… what?”

“How long has he been using?”

“I don’t know. Harper told me. His roommate called Indra, and she’s taking care of him.”

She bursts into tears and he quickly gets up to hug her. “Everything is falling apart. Everything is just… bad.”

“I’m so sorry, honey.”

“What has he been using?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“It’s my fault.”

“No it’s not. I’m sure Lincoln will tell you that too when he’s feeling better. You’re not responsible for his actions.”

She cries for a long time. Eventually, Kane makes her drink down a cup of chamomile tea and take a couple of pills and then gets her to bed. 

“See you in the morning, sweetheart.”

She’s already asleep.

_________________________________________________________

Raven’s heart is starting to stabilize slowly. Her doctor has warned her that if she doesn’t eat, her heart will likely arrest again, and it’s too weak to come back from that a second time. Meals are a nightmare. 

“Raven, you need to start eating.” The lady says. The sick girl can’t remember what this woman’s job title is, but apparently it has something to do with babysitting her.

“My stomach hurts.”

“Do you want an antacid?”

“No. I want this fucking tube out of my fucking nose.”

“And eating healthy meals is a great step in that direction.”

She scowls at the woman. “If I puke, it’ll be because of you.”

The woman doesn’t react, and Raven huffingly takes a bite of the shepherd’s pie that’s for dinner. Raven can practically taste the calories and she immediately wants to purge. It’s more than a want, though. She’s trained her body to react this way. When there’s food in her stomach, it starts to get upset, and she’ll naturally become nauseated.

“I don’t feel good.”

“Raven, if you don’t eat supper, you’ll have to drink a resource later. It’s a protein shake-like drink with enough calories to make up for the food you wouldn’t or couldn’t eat.”

At this, Raven glowers up at the lady. “I’m trying, okay?” She grits out.

“Okay.”

It takes her two hours of near-agony before she’s finally done with the meal. She has no idea how much of her stomach ache is psychological and how much her stomach is genuinely upset. All she knows is she hasn’t eaten that much in months.

She’s up all night with a stomach ache. She can’t even give her body the satisfaction of tossing and turning because her ribs seem to scream at her anytime she moves. She greets morning feeling exhausted and nauseated. Her stomach is cramping again and when the orderly comes in with breakfast, she can’t help it; she starts crying.

___________________________________________________________________

Octavia is woken at 8:30 AM by Kane. 

“Honey, it’s time to wake up.”

She’s groggy and disoriented, and she’s fairly sure the pills her dad had her take last night have something to do with it. The doctor had started her on some new medication, but the hospital had been too much of a blur for her to remember exactly what.

“How are you feeling about going to class?”

“Uh, fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, I might as well do something, rather than sit at home and worry about Raven and Lincoln. Have you heard from Indra?”

“No. Which is good news. I called last night and told her to text me if she had to bring Lincoln into the ER, so it’s a good sign that he’s been able to stick it out at home.”

“Marc, have you been with anyone through withdrawal?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Who?”

“Your mom.”

“Oh.”

“She was on 72 hour hold at the hospital. It was pretty bad.”

Octavia had been 8 at the time. She remembers calling 911, seeing her mother seizing on the floor of their apartment. She never saw her mom again. She had been placed in foster care with Kane, and two months later her mom died in a gang related shooting. A year after she was placed with Kane, he adopted her.

“That’s why the social worker wouldn’t let me see her?” 

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Kane ends up driving her to school and actually walking her into her class. Luckily, she doesn’t know any of the other students in this class well enough to be embarrassed.

She has a hard time paying attention in class, and she realizes at the end she didn’t take any notes.

________________________________________________________

  
  


__________________________________________________________

“I want to go visit Raven,” Octavia says to Marcus after getting out of class.

“Sweetheart, you need to rest.”

“One hour there won’t do me any harm. She’s all alone. She doesn’t have family, and only a few friends. She needs me.”

He sighs. “Fine.”

He drives her to the hospital and waits downstairs at the coffee shop while Octavia goes to see Raven. When she enters the room, her roommate is sitting up, writing on something. 

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“Octavia! Come here!” 

She draws close to the bed, and Raven reaches to hug her, ignoring the breathlessness the pain in her ribs is causing her.

“Are you okay?” Raven asks.

“Yeah.”

“You look pale.”

“I’m working on it. How are you?”

“I mean, it kind of sucks being stuck in a hospital bed while my friends are like, dying.”

“We’re fine. Well, I’m fine. I haven’t seen Lincoln.”

“Yeah, did you know what was happening there?”

“No. I feel awful that I didn’t even notice… I guess in hindsight, I can see that some stuff was off. Has the doctor said anything about when you can come home?”

“I think another couple of days.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Pretty bad. And I’m bored AF. Harper brought me some Sudoku but I’ve done most of them.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“Have you seen a psychiatrist?”

She nods.

“And?”

“And I uh... got a diagnosis of anorexia.”

“Really? I thought that was…”

“The starving one?” She asks matter-of-factly.

“Well, yeah.”

“It is. Apparently there’s more eating involved with bulimia.”

“Oh.”

“I’m all set up to do outpatient therapy once I leave, so you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

“I’ll always worry about you. And I’m gonna be by your side through this. But I’m glad.”

Raven nods. “Are you seeing someone?”

“I have a boyfriend, but polyamory isn’t off the table.” Octavia says with a smirk.

She blinks.

“That was a joke. Yeah, I’m still seeing my counselor.”

“Yeah. ‘Course. Sorry.” Raven shakes her head slightly.

“I see my psychiatrist tomorrow and I have an appointment with my therapist on Thursday.”

“Good.”

They don’t have anything to small-talk about, so after a few minutes of silence, Octavia says goodbye.

___________________________________________________________________

“So when are you going back to your house?” Octavia asks Kane on the ride home.

“Well, O, I’m not sure I’m comfortable leaving you here by yourself.”

“Raven will be home soon.”

“Honey, your friends are… well, they’re not making great life choices. I don’t think they’re a good influence on you.”

“We’re all just doing the best we can. And I have more than Raven and Lincoln.”

“I know. I’m just saying, living with an anorexic roommate probably isn’t going to help your mental health.”

“She doesn’t have anyone else!”

“I know. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t think this is a great situation for you, but you’re an adult. I just want you to think about how your friends impact your mental health. And consider broadening your friend group a little.”

“Fine.”   
  


_____________________________________________________________________

The psychiatrist comes to visit Raven again later that day. She asks her a lot about her leg, soccer, and her childhood. Raven gives her an unemotional rundown of the trauma she experienced in her childhood, from her mother’s alcoholism and neglect, to her death when Raven was 10. Hell, she even throws in some of the horrors she experienced in foster care, before she found a halfway decent home that helped her to realize her passion for soccer. Unfortunately, though the family loved Raven, they got involved in a messy divorce, and lost custody of her. The psychiatrist keeps asking her how things made her feel. She keeps responding: angry.

  
  
  
  



	11. Lincoln, Raven, and Octavia

Lincoln wakes up on the bathroom floor. He’s shivering from the sweat-soaked clothes he’s in, and all his muscles hurt. All he can smell is sweat and vomit, and the memory of the last couple of days hits him. He trudges to his room to grab a towel, and sees his aunt, working on a laptop on the couch.

“Wow, upright  _ and  _ not puking? You must have finally gotten it out of your system.”

“I need a shower.”

“Sure do. I think half of your nausea was just coming from your own stench.”

When he gets out of the shower, he feels kind of weak, and Indra’s made him unseasoned scrambled eggs, with a whisper of “easy on the stomach.”

That afternoon, Miller comes home from class and greets Lincoln with a pat on the back. “Feeling better, man?”

He nods.

“Good. You should check in with O. She’s been texting me nonstop about you.”

“Shit. Is she okay?”

“She… was in the ER for dehydration. Monroe found her passed out on the floor of her apartment.”

“Shit.” He goes to his room and searches for his phone. He then searches the rest of the house and eventually finds it on the kitchen counter along with some pocket change and his wallet. His aunt must have taken them out before laundering his clothes. Unfortunately, the phone is dead. He swears, bringing it back to his room to charge, and starting to pace around the house.

“If I wanted to watch someone go around in circles, I’d watch NASCAR. What’s up?” Indra asks.

“Just waiting for my phone to have enough charge to call O.”

“You need to call your sponsor first.”

“But she was in the hospital!”

“I know. I’ve been in touch with Marcus. He’s making sure she’s okay. Now we need to make sure  _ you  _ aren’t going to fall off the deep end again.”

He sighs. Getting back on the bandwagon is going to suck.

__________________________________________________________________

“Raven, it’s time for lunch,” a bright and chipper orderly says, placing the tray on the roll away table.

“How the  _ fuck  _ is it already lunch time? I just finished breakfast.” She feels like throwing the tray against the wall.

“Well, you took 3 hours to finish breakfast.” She says hesitantly. 

“I don’t want it.”

“I know. But you can do it.”

Her hand subconsciously drifts up to her face, picking at the tape holding her NG tube in place. She glowers at the orderly as she leaves. Raven lifts the lid and discovers a plate with meat, sweet potatoes, and green beans. Her stomach aches and she feels like she’s going to panic. Someone apparently didn’t get the memo that Raven was supposed to be watched as she ate. The patient hurriedly takes the mushy sweet potato in her hands and stuffs it into the drawer of the little table beside her bed, wiping her hands on the napkin when she’s done. She then cuts off half of the meat and puts it in the same place. She’ll throw it in the toilet later.

There’s a knock on the door, and Raven quickly closes the drawer. Harper walks in.

“Hey!”

“Hey Harper. I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I was finishing some clinical hours, and thought I’d stop by after my shift. You’re looking… slightly less like death!”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Any time. How are you feeling?”

“Well this thing really sucks,” she says, pointing to her nose. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been punched in the nose, but it kind of feels like that. And the ribs are, you know, healing, but definitely painful, especially if I laugh or… cry.”

“That sounds rough. Is your heart stabilizing?”

She nods. “I’ve had a few weird rhythms, but none they’ve had to shock me for, so that’s a plus.”

“How’s your hip handling being in bed so much?”

Raven smirks. “Not so great.”

“You on some painkillers?”

“Yeah, but they’re only sort of working. Anyway, enough about me. Have you talked with O?”

“She texted me. Have you?”

“She stopped by.”

“You think she’s getting better?”

“I don’t know. She’s on meds and set up to see her psychiatrist soon. So that’s something.”

“That is. How are you?”

“I’m… getting there.”

“When are they going to let you out?”

“I have to gain more weight. They obviously don’t want to send me home with this in,” she says, indicating the NG tube.

“Right. Are you going to try to take your finals?”

“Shit… I hadn’t even thought about it.”

“Wow. You really aren’t yourself.”

“I’m trying okay?” Raven snaps.

“Okay.” Harper says, putting her hands up.

“Sorry. Sorry.” She says, sighing. “I’m kind of a bitch lately. It’s--things are really hard right now.”

“It’s okay. If you need me to call anyone about you taking finals, let me know.”

She nods.

“I brought Uno if you wanna play.”

“Yeah, that’d be good.”

_________________________________________________________

Octavia’s heart starts racing when her phone rings. She rushes over to it and a picture of Lincoln is on the screen.

“Lincoln?”

“Octavia?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I was so worried.”

“I was worried about you. Can I come see you?”

“Yeah!”

She walks over to his place, intrusive thoughts running through her head about letting herself fall into the oncoming traffic. She finally gets there and rings the doorbell. Lincoln flings the door open and lifts her into his arms.

“I’m so sorry, O.”

“I should have been watching you more carefully. I didn’t think--”

“I should have been honest with you.”

“It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

He kisses her on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re okay too.”

He ushers her inside. Indra looks up from her laptop.

“Hello Octavia.”

“Hi Indra.”

Lincoln brings her to his room where they sit on his bed against the headboard. She curls so her head is on his chest.

“So when did it start?”

“That party we went to at Monty and Jasper’s. I’m so sorry.” 

She nods. 

“What have you been taking?”

“Different stuff. Whatever I could find.” 

They’re silent for a while.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me, O.”

“I forgive you. You don’t have to say you’re sorry anymore.”

“But you could have died.”

“I probably wouldn’t have. One apology is enough, okay?”

He nods, kissing her hair.

“I’m sorry too. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own shit, I didn’t see that you were struggling too. And I didn’t ask.” 

“I forgive you too. Are you okay? Miller told me you were in the hospital.”

“I’m okay. I just… got too sad. I was stressed about Raven and also just in my general depression funk and just couldn’t get myself to get out of bed to eat or drink anything for like 2 days. I got up to go to the bathroom and must have passed out. That’s when Harper found me.”

“Did you cut?”

She nods against his chest.

“Can I see?”

She sighs and pulls up her sleeves. He looks down at the cuts. Several are too near to the veins in her wrists, and it makes Lincoln shake as he reaches down to hold her hands gently. He pulls each wrist up to his mouth to kiss them and he can feel Octavia shake with a sob.

“So what’s the plan,” he asks after a little while.

“I’m seeing my psychiatrist tomorrow. We’ve already changed my meds, and I’m seeing my counselor twice a week for a while.”

“That sounds like a good plan.”

“And Kane’s staying with me right now. 

“How is that?”

“Okay. He’s… I know he’s worried. But keeps saying I need to make better friends and it just really sucks because Raven is my best friend, and she’s overcome so much and I know she’ll beat this stupid eating disorder. And you are the most amazing person and I know that at least half the reason you’re having a hard time is  _ because  _ I’m having a hard time, so like, I wonder if you’d be better off without me.”

“Octavia, look at me.” 

She turns so she can look him in the eyes.

“You’re not the reason I turned to drugs. The reason I turned to drugs is because I’m an addict.”   
“I just want you to be okay. I want you to be doing well, and I don’t want to hold you up in your recovery. So if that means we can’t be together--”

“Woah, what are you talking about,” he interrupts her.

“I don’t want to get in the way of you getting better.”

“Octavia, you’re the reason I didn’t turn to drugs like 5 different times in the last year. I’m still a recovering addict. I’ve only been clean for like 2 and a half years, so sometimes stressful stuff makes me want to do stupid stuff. But it’s not your fault. I just still have a lot of work to do on myself. 

“So what’s  _ your  _ plan?”

“I called Nyko, my sponsor, today. We’re gonna start meeting regularly again.”

“Are you going to go to NA?”

“To be honest, it didn’t really help me that much. It helped a lot more to go to counseling and work with Nyko.”

“Okay. Whatever’s helpful for you.”

He nods and kisses her cheek, then her neck, then her shoulder.

She smiles and reaches to kiss him back. 

  
  


_________________________________________________________________________

The next day, Lincoln stops by Raven’s room.

“Hey Raven.”

“Lincoln, hi!” She pushes her blankets aside and grunts as she swings her legs down from the bed. 

“Hey, how are you?” He reaches for a careful hug.

“I mean, I’m not going to be doing cardio anytime soon, but I walked to the end of the hall yesterday, so I’m basically cured.” She says with a smirk.

“Wow, going hardcore.”

She nods. “How are you? Are you…”

“I’m clean. I puked for like 3 days, and now I’m back on the bandwagon.”

“Are you going to some sort of meetings now… or…”

“I got in touch with my sponsor, Nyko. He and I are going to start meeting again.”

“I’m proud of you.”

“I didn’t really have a choice.”

“Still. That’s gotta be really hard.”

“It is. Uh, you still have the nose tube, I see.”

“Yeah. I just need to gain another 5 pounds and then I’ll have it out and get to go home.”

“Nice. Do you think you’ll do okay at home?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

He nods. “Is there a back-up plan?”

“I’ll set up nutritionist and doctors appointments once I go home, and they’ll weigh me at those. If I start losing again, they’ll admit me to the psych ward.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty good incentive not to do that.”

“It’ll be good for you to be home.”

She smiles. 

______________________________________________________________

Lincoln goes over to the apartment that night to spend some time with Octavia. They eat pizza and watch an Avengers movie and cuddle.

Midway through the movie, he looks over at her and kisses her cheek. She kisses him back. She’s missed him. He kisses her on the lips, and she giggles when he sucks on her lip. She responds by sliding her hands up his shirt and gripping his back as she kisses his neck.

They haven’t had sex yet in their relationship. Lincoln identifies as demisexual and biromantic. He had explained to Octavia when their relationship started that he had to know someone really well before he felt comfortable having sex, and she has respected that. She’s pansexual and she’s been in relationships with a girl, Nylah, and a nonbinary partner, Atom. She’s always been interested in the concept of a polyamorous relationship, but so far it hasn’t happened.

“O, do you want to… Do you want to have sex?”

“Yes! Wait, are you sure?”

“Yes. I love you. I want to.”

“I love you too.” She says breathlessly.

They’ve never said it before. They crash their lips together a bit painfully and Octavia stands up. 

“We should--go to--the bedroom,” she says, breaking up her sentence with kisses.

“Shit. Condom.”

“Oh.” 

They break apart for a minute. Lincoln doesn’t carry any with him, since it’s been years since he got any. Raven is bi, but isn’t exactly focused on relationships right now, so she doesn’t have any that Octavia knows about. Octavia thinks for a second, then remembers that she had gone to the school’s health fair a month ago, and they were giving away condoms. She rushes to her room, quickly followed by Lincoln. Finding the bag shoved under her bag, she tears through it, and finds a blue condom, unopened.

“Jackpot!” She says with a grin, then stands up and peels off her shirt.

  
  


It’s exciting and a little bit awkward, but full of love and patience and goodness. They both lay in bed next to each other afterward, Lincoln’s body wrapped around Octavia’s. He’s a total cuddler, to the point that Octavia occasionally feels claustrophobic. But it’s good, too. It’s sweet.

“Wow.” He says finally.

“Yeah.” 

“You’re so beautiful, you know that?”

She smiles and turns over to look at him, sighing. Just then, the alarm on her phone goes off from the kitchen.

“Damn. Gotta get up and take my pills.” She scoots to the edge of the bed and starts to grab her clothes.

“Babe, you don’t have anyone to cover up for.”

“Oh… yeah.” She looks down, and he can tell she’s looking at her scars, trying to tell how evident they are.

“Hey.”

She looks at him.

“You don’t have to cover up anything anymore. Okay?”

“Okay.” She goes to the kitchen table and grabs the phone, shutting off the alarm. Grabbing a glass, she gets herself some water and comes back to the room, pulling a couple of pill bottles from her night stand.

“These are the new ones your doctor started you on?”

“Yeah. an antidepressant and a sleeping pill. I’ve got a pill in case my panic attacks get bad too, but I don’t have to take that one unless I need it.”

He nods. She hopes the pills aren’t triggering him. She had looked it up, and apparently ativan, the one for panic attacks, can be addictive. She purposely didn’t tell him the name, and it isn’t in her drawer, but hidden in a coat pocket in her closet. She doesn’t want to take any risks. 

___________________________________________________________________

“O, I made breakfast,” Lincoln says, waving bacon near her nose. Octavia is not a morning person, something he knew, but hadn’t fully experienced before.

“‘S’there coffee?

“Yup.”

She reaches out, eyes still closed, and pets his head.

“Gotta love me.”

“I do.” She cracks an eye open and takes the bacon.  _ God  _ does she love him.

  
  
  



	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention that Kane went home last chapter before Octavia and Lincoln had sex. He wasn’t just hanging in the apartment while they were getting it on. 😝
> 
> Trigger warning for weight mentions.

Raven has been in the hospital for two and a half weeks, and her weight gain is starting to slow down. It makes her less anxious, but it also means a longer stay in the hospital. She still needs to gain another 3 pounds in order to leave, and then needs to keep gaining weight at home to get to the 30 lbs up her doctor had recommended. She had asked Octavia to bring her laptop the week before and now she’s bored and has finished all the online homework and reading she had been behind on. She decides to email her professor, Sinclair, to see if she’s missed any in-class assignments, when she’s interrupted by an orderly.

“Raven, your psychiatrist would like you to attend a group therapy session that starts in 15 minutes.”

“What? She never mentioned that.”

“It’s an eating disorders group. All inpatient.”

“Uh… Okay.”

“It’s a ways over to the ward, so I brought the wheelchair.” She says. Raven pulls off the covers and asks a bit gruffly for her brace, which is across the room. She takes her sweet time strapping it on. The orderly finally helps her off the bed and into the wheelchair, switches her IV bag and feeding tube pump to the wheelchair IV pole, and they start going. She was right; it is a long way. They go across the hospital and up two floors, and then the orderly is wheeling her toward a door with a sign that says “Psych Ward” with dumb pictures of flowery designs that are apparently supposed to be calming.

“Um, why are we going to the psych ward?”

“That’s where the group therapy sessions are.”

“I get to go back to my room afterward, right?”

“Of course.”

“Okay.”

Patients start to show up, and Raven can’t help but feel pangs of jealousy looking at some of them. Several of them have NG tubes like Raven. Many of them are chatting, but Raven stays silent. The therapy starts, and it’s a lot of “mindfulness” stuff, and “Staying balanced.” It all sounds a little corny, but some of the stuff the therapist says is pretty practical. She’s talking about techniques for controlling impulses, and Raven wonders if she’ll actually be able to do that. She hasn’t purged at the hospital. She has hidden food three times, but that probably won’t continue at home. She fights with herself internally about if she wants to get better or not.

Then things get weird. They ask for people to share in “non-judgemental, non-triggering ways,” and a skeletal girl with brown wavy hair talks about how she controls impulses by holding an ice cube in her hand. Raven zones out, and soon she’s wheeled back to her room.

“Raven, we’ve gotta do vitals,” Cindy, one of the regular nurses, says.

She holds out her skinny arm to the nurse.

“Your color’s so much better than it was just a week ago.”

She doesn’t respond. The only reason her color is better is because they’re fattening her up. Her breath speeds up.

“Woah, Raven. Your pulse is racing. Are you feeling okay?”

“No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My chest hurts,” she says, chokingly.

Cindy checks Raven’s blood pressure and watches the heart monitor for a minute. Raven’s feeling a little dizzy from how fast she’s breathing.

“Hey, Raven look at me.”

She glances up. Her breaths hurt.

“I think you’re having a panic attack.”

“What? No. I don’t get those.”

“I think that’s what’s happening. You’re not having any strange rhythms, and your blood pressure and temperature are the usual. I want you to focus on taking your breaths slower, okay? You’re safe.”

She’s crying, and she’s not sure why and it scares her. It feels like it takes a long time for her to calm down. When she does, she’s exhausted, and takes a nap for over two hours. When she wakes up, it’s to Cindy telling her that the psychiatrist is here to see her.

“Hi Raven.” Dr. Bahar, the psychiatrist says.

“Hi. What are you doing here?”

“I heard you had a panic attack.”

“I guess.”

“Do you know what set it off?”

“Not really. I mean, the nurse said I was getting my color back, and that kind of freaked me out, but I’ve never had anything like that happen. At least not since…”

“Since what?”

“Since a long time ago.”

“Raven, sometimes when you stop doing something to deal with your emotions, like purging and restricting, your system needs time to find a new coping mechanism. You’re used to bottling up all your emotions and dealing with them in unhealthy ways. Panic attacks are uncomfortable, but they’ll probably continue to occur until you find another, hopefully healthy, outlet for your feelings.”

“Like what?” She asks, feeling irritable.

“Journaling.”

“Ugh. I fucking hate journaling.”

“Some people use exercise.”

She glares at the doctor.

“Others use meditation.”

“I’m not really very zen.”

“You have to find the right thing for you. And it’s going to be hard. But if you want to live, it’s your only option.”

Raven doesn’t say anything.

“There’s something else we need to talk about.”

“What?” She’s worried somehow the psychiatrist knows about her hiding food.

“Raven, your insurance won’t pay for you to stay here past tomorrow. We want you to continue gaining weight, but unless you can pay out of pocket, you won’t be able to stay here.”

“Oh.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to comply with your nutrition requirements at home?”

“I--I don’t know.”

“Are you planning to relapse when you get home?”

“I don’t know. It’s really hard to think straight.”

“That’s because you’re malnourished.”

“I--I’ll try.”

“Okay. If you start losing weight again, you will need to be re-admitted.”

“Will my insurance even cover it?”

“If you get sick enough, yes.”

“So the second I start looking like I might be okay, they think I don’t need treatment, and the only way I can get it is by getting worse again?”

“Insurance is really messed up.”

“No shit.”

“I’d like you to call and set up at least 3 appointments with your counselor today in preparation for you going home. You’ll also make some follow-up appointments with your dietician and cardiologist to monitor your weight and health.”

She nods.

“And who will you be living with?”

“My roommate, Octavia.”

“Do you have a way to get medications and groceries?”

She nods. “I have a car.”

The nutritionist comes next, and gives her a meal plan for at home. It involves five meals a day and the same number of calories she’s been on, but without supplementation through the feeding tube. It seems overwhelming to cook that often, much less eat that much at home. 

Her cardiothoracic doctor tells her she can’t exercise, which isn’t exactly a surprise, but also says she shouldn’t do things like stairs or heavy housework until he says otherwise; she’s got several outpatient appointments set up with him to monitor her heart.

  
  
  


**Rae: Hey, can you bring me home tomorrow?**

**O: YAY! YES. What time?**

**Rae: 10am?**

**O: Sounds good.**

When Octavia shows up the next morning, Raven is sitting up, looking less than comfortable.

“Hey, no nose tube!”

“I know, thank god. I was worried they’d send me home with it.”

“Are you excited to go home?”

“Hell yes.”

She gets checked out and O drives her home. Walking is a pain in the ass, and she’s back to using a cane because being bedridden set her back in her hip recovery.

“Do you have a meal plan?” Octavia asks in the elevator.

“Yeah. But I still have to make a lot of my own decisions and cook and stuff.” 

“Okay. Well, we should go grocery shopping.”

“Uh, yeah. Just maybe not today. I’m kinda worn out.”

“Of course. Well, I’ll make us lunch.”

_______________________________________________________________

Octavia makes Raven spaghetti for lunch. The Latina stares at it for a while before finally taking a bite. Octavia tries not to pay too much attention. It takes Raven longer than it should to finish the meal, and when she finally gets up to put her dish away, Octavia swoops in.

“Wanna watch a movie?”

“I should study.”

“Are you taking your finals?”

“‘Course.”

“You’ve missed three weeks of classes.

“So? I’ve still got a scholarship to maintain.”

“Well, good for you. Just call me if you need anything.”

For supper, Octavia makes lemon chicken with green beans and rice.

“This is elaborate, O. I didn’t know you were a cook.”

“I just want to make sure you’re getting enough.”

Raven nods.

“I’m going to the store tomorrow, and then I can start cooking my own meals.”

“That’s good. But it’ll be more cost effective if we cook some meals together like we used to.”

_________________________________________________________

The next morning, Raven has an appointment with Abby for the first time since her hospitalization. 

“Raven, it’s good to see you. I saw you were in the hospital.”

“Yeah, um, heart issues.”

The physical therapist nods knowingly.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better.”

“You look better.”

Raven grits her teeth. She knows Abby means well, but all she hears in those words is ‘you look fatter.’

“My hip isn’t so hot though. I was basically in one position the whole time I was in the hospital, so it kind of set me back. I’m back using the cane.”

“That’s alright, Raven. Your healing is a marathon, not a sprint. There’ll be setbacks, but we know what’s helped reduce your pain before, so we know where to start.”

They work on some really simple exercises and gentle stretches.

At the end of the appointment, Abby says, “Raven, I’m glad you’re okay. I was concerned. Do you have what you need to stay healthy?”

Raven knows she isn’t just talking about her heart.

“Yeah, I think I do.” She’s surprised to find that she’s not lying. She’s got her strong will, which is a force to be reckoned with in and of itself, and friends she knows care deeply about her. And even though sometimes she’s not even sure she wants to recover, she knows that eventually she’ll get there.

  
  



	13. Raven and Octavia

They come up with a meal plan for the next week and come up with exactly what they need from the grocery store, so Raven isn’t too overwhelmed. It’s a good effort, but it doesn’t help much. As they go down aisle after aisle, she’s getting sweaty and won’t make eye contact with Octavia.

“Raven, do we need--Raven?”

“What?”

“What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing. Why?”

“You don’t look well.”

“This is stressing me out.”

“Do you want to split up so this goes faster?”

“No!”

“Okay. Um… Why don’t you just push the cart and read off the list and I’ll do the searching. Okay?”

She nods.

  
  


They get to their apartment, and Raven sees an ominous sign on the door: “Elevator out of order. Use stairs.”

“Shit.”

“What?” Octavia moves up to the sign. “Oh. Shit.”

There’s no way Raven’s hip would hold up for the 6 flights of stairs to their apartment. Even if it could, her heart can’t handle it. She’s on strict exercise restrictions as her heart continues to heal from its weakened state.

“What am I going to do?” Raven asks.

“I could call Lincoln. He could carry you up.”

She sighs. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Of course not.” She texts him. It takes him 15 minutes to get there and Raven is sitting on the steps, glaring at the door.

“Hey.” Lincoln says when she lets him in.

“Hi.”

“Ready?”

She nods. She had sent Octavia upstairs to put the cold groceries away. 

“Alright. If you could get up on that stair step, I’ll put this hand behind your back and…” He lifts her injured leg up as she hops the working one into his arm. She’s still too light for how tall she is, but he’s not going to say that, knowing weight and food are sensitive subjects. He starts carrying her up the stairs. 

“So how is it being home?” 

“Better than being in the hospital.”

“Are you going to take your finals?”

“Yeah, ‘course.”

“Um, are you eating?”

“Yeah. Are you doing drugs?”

“What? No.”

“See, makes it kind of uncomfortable to be asked questions like that.”

“That’s fair. I just… want you to stick around.”

“Hey, same goes for you.” She says, looking him in the eyes. “O needs you. And… I like having you around too.”

He nods. About four flights up, he’s pretty winded. “I’m gonna stop for a minute.”

“Sure.” She moves to get down, but he stops her.

“No, it’s fine. Just give me a minute.”

He rests for a moment, then continues up the last few flights of stairs. She slips herself out of his grasp at the top of the stairs. 

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“I mean, considering you drove 10 minutes and just carried me up 6 flights of stairs, it was a little bit of a problem.”

“I was happy to do it. You’re my friend.”

For some reason, the word stings Raven. She nods gruffly and proceeds into the apartment. Lincoln comes in behind her.

  
  
  
  


Meal times are okay at first. She and Octavia eat most of their meals together. Three afternoons following her arrival home, she has a sandwich that has mayo on it, one of her fear foods. It only has a tablespoon, but it’s too much for her after only half the sandwich. Octavia comes home and hears quick breathing in the bathroom.

“Rae? Are you okay?”

There’s no answer.

“I’m coming in.” She pushes open the door and Raven is kneeling in front of the toilet, hyperventilating.

“Hey.” Octavia says softly. She pulls Raven into a soft hug, then gently pulls her so she’s sitting down. Raven lets out a whimper.

“Did you throw up?”

She shakes her head, mumbling, “I, I was going to. I want to.”

“No. It needs to stay in. Your body needs food.”

Raven bursts into tears.

“Okay. It’s okay.”

She doesn’t say much, knowing that more talking won’t necessarily help right now, but Raven’s food anxiety is already ramped up.

“Hey, do you want to go sit in the living room?”

“No!”

Octavia decides to try appealing to Raven’s reason. “What did you eat?”

“A--a sandwich with ham and mayo.”

“And that freaked you out?”

She nods. “The mayo. It’s got a shit ton of fat and calories.”

“I mean, you probably didn’t put a ton on your sandwich.”

Raven just puts her head in her hands and sobs.

They’ve been on the floor for a half an hour, and Octavia still can’t calm Raven down or convince her to leave the bathroom. She finally decides to text Lincoln. He’s over in 10 minutes.

“Hi Rae,” he says when he gets to the bathroom door. “I bet your hip hurts sitting like that.”

She nods tearfully.

“Let’s get you up, huh?” Octavia lets go of Raven, and the sobbing woman allows herself to be lifted to her feet, shuddering in pain.

“Let’s go sit down in the living room.”

They slowly walk her over to the couch, each taking an arm, and Lincoln covers her in a blanket.

“You wanna watch something?”

She shakes her head.

“Alright. Let’s clean you up a little bit, hey?” He pulls several tissues from a box on the coffee table and wipes the tears off her face and chin. 

“Have you been going to your classes?”

“Yeah.” She sniffles.

“How are those going?”

“It’s hard catching up.”

“I bet. What’s your favorite class?”

“Thermodynamics with Sinclair.”

“Why?”

“Well, Sinclair is just such a good teacher. He really cares about his students and wants us all to succeed, and he teaches these advanced, difficult concepts in such a clear way.”

Octavia is amazed watching Lincoln with Raven. He’s so calm and somehow gets her mind off of things. It’s the same thing he does with her. 

They sit with Raven for the whole afternoon. She calms down, but they’re apprehensive. 

“Raven, we should have supper soon.”

She moans.

“You know you have to follow your meal plan.”

They eat chicken with potatoes and veggies and Raven gets a little panicky after the meal. She ends up bringing her homework out into the main room. Her nighttime snack is almost always the hardest. It’s nearly 10pm when Octavia realizes they forgot about it. 

“Rae, want some yogurt for your evening snack?”

She groans. “No.”

“I’m not in the arguing mood. I’m not going to force you to eat.”

Raven huffs and gets up, wincing and holding her hip as she stiffly makes her way to the kitchen. She opens the fridge, grabs a yogurt, and sits down at the table with a spoon. After downing it quickly, she says “I’m going to bed.”

“Do you want to purge?”

“Of course I do,” she snaps.

“Do you need company?”

Raven considers for a moment before nodding. This situation is the reverse of what it normally is. Raven had coined the phrase “need company” a year ago, when she had started sleeping in Octavia’s bed on nights when she was suicidal. This time, it’s Octavia’s turn to keep Raven company. She gets ready for bed, then stays with Raven while she brushes her teeth and changes into her pajamas. For the latter part, she turns away and she’s not quite sure why. They had lived in the same room for freshman year, and neither girl had given much notice when the other changed. Raven throws herself onto the bed; without her brace on, trying to climb in gracefully is pretty much impossible. Octavia climbs into the other side of the bed.

“Things aren’t always gonna be this hard, Rae.”

“Really? Because that claim doesn’t really fit with my track record.”

“Really. I mean, this isn’t even a life circumstance so much as a bad coping mechanism. You just have to choose not to follow the lie that restricting food is going to solve your problems.”

“Listen sunshine, I have zero control over the stupid voice in my head saying starving myself is the answer to all my problems.”

“But you do get to decide whether you listen to it or ignore it.”

“Sometimes it feels like I don’t.” Raven rubs her forehead. “I’m tired.”

“You ready to turn out the lights?”

“Yeah,” she makes to get out of bed to grab the lights, but Octavia beats her to it.

She falls asleep after a half an hour and sleeps better than she has in a long time. When she wakes up, Octavia is curled around her, an arm slung around Raven’s waist and body pressed into Raven’s back. Suddenly, Raven’s alarm on her phone goes off, and she startles, quickly reaching to turn it off. She’s expecting Octavia to wake up and disentangle herself immediately. Instead, she hears her yawn and if anything, snuggle closer. Raven stares down at the arm around her waist. She finds herself wanting to reach and hold Octavia’s hand, but stops herself. Instead, she tries to soak up the moment while it lasts.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, it's been a while! Here's an update.
> 
> Also, the title of this fic is based on the song "You Don't Get Me High Anymore," by Phantogram. It doesn't have anything to do with the endgame number of people who will be together. That's probably been confusing throughout this fic, so sorry about that!

Just because Octavia is seeing a counselor and taking medication, that doesn’t mean that she’s okay. She’s cut twice in the last 3 days and she feels guilty about it. Raven and Lincoln have been working so hard to get over their issues, and here she is letting herself slip. Her anxiety is raging about the next time Lincoln and she have sex because he’ll surely see the recent wounds.

“O, are you okay in there?”

Octavia jumps. She’s sitting on the toilet with her shirt up, exposing her abdomen, covered in cuts. Quickly she flips her shirt down and flushes the toilet.

“Yeah, I’ll be right out.”

Raven looks her up and down when she comes out. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine.” 

“Okay.” 

Finals are finally here and all three of the students are stressed. They sit around on the couches and study for hours and hours. Lincoln is stressed because if he doesn’t get at least a B+ on his final, he’ll get a B- in one of his classes and lose his standing in the pre-med program. Octavia is unmotivated, but she’s trying her hardest to study. She wonders if it’s worth it; if she’ll even make it long enough to get a job. It’s hard to imagine herself graduating or living independently. It’s hard to imagine living at all. When she tries to picture her future, it’s just a big blank nothing.

Lincoln and Octavia both know that Raven will do well on her finals. She’s one of the smartest people they know. She was valedictorian of her class in high school and has a 4.0 GPA. But Raven is still stressed. Ever since she’s been eating more, the tension in her body has gone way up. She still has to use the cane to get around, and her hip is killing her, adding to her stress.

They all study late the night before the first day of finals. Lincoln goes home at 11pm and Raven and Octavia continue to study till 12:30am before both going to their respective rooms. Lincoln brings them breakfast sandwiches the next morning and drives them to campus. They drop off Raven first, as the science building is near the edge of campus. 

“Good luck, Rae!” Octavia says, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Thanks. You guys too.”

“You’ve got this, Raven,” Lincoln says sincerely. He drops off Octavia with a kiss and word of encouragement, then goes to his own final on the opposite end of campus in the medical building.

He had been tempted to buy Adderall off an old friend for studying, but had called Nyko numerous times instead. He goes through the final pretty quickly as he really had studied hard for this one. Afterward, he goes to the library to study for a few hours before the next final. Octavia meets him after that one. They talk briefly about how they think they did, then decide not to talk about it anymore. They pick up Raven and get a pizza on the way home. They’re all tired from studying the night before and fall asleep on the couch, Raven with her head on Octavia’s shoulder, Lincoln with a leg tangled around Octavia’s.

Raven gets a notification that wakes her up around 6pm. She groggily checks her phone and finds that she got a 98/100 on her final. Scrolling through the answers, she finds the two that she got wrong and mentally notes them. Octavia’s head is on Raven’s shoulder now. She notices that O’s sleeve is bunched up on her forearm, and sees some recent cuts on Octavia’s wrist. She wishes she could clean and bandage them without waking her up. She hates that her best friend is in pain, and hates even more that she doesn’t seem to be able to do anything to help.

Octavia stirs and opens her eyes. Raven expects her to shift away, but instead, she just smirks at Raven.

“You’ve got the ‘I did well on my final’ glow.”

“Yeah, well…”

“What’d you get?”

“98%.”

“And you were worried about it.”

______________________________________________________________________

After finals are over, they all go to Kane’s house for Christmas. It’s a good break for them all. None of them has especially fond memories of Christmas growing up, but they’re able to create new memories together. 

They go sledding and Lincoln insists on pulling Raven in a sled up the hill so she can continue as long as she wants without her hip being a deterrent. They make Christmas cookies with frosting that was supposed to be green but inexplicably turns brown when it dries. 

Lincoln has daily calls with Nyko at 7pm, and they make sure to schedule their evenings around it. Raven’s meal plan is up on the fridge and Marcus makes sure they have enough food in the house to follow it. Octavia is trying to be in the holiday spirit, but her depression is festering, making it hard for her to smile and keep up conversation. She’s been waiting on a few of her final grades, and it’s making her anxious on top of the depression. Lincoln spends a lot of time just being with her and not making her talk when he knows she’s not up to it.

One night, Raven is busy emailing a professor a question about the pre-course reading for one of her classes while Lincoln is on the phone with Nyko. After a while, Lincoln comes down to the living room.

“Do you know where Octavia is?”

“I thought she was resting.”

“I already checked the bedroom.”

Raven gets up, clutching her crimson cane.

They call Marcus, who had gone out to grocery shop, but he hasn’t seen her either. Lincoln feels like he’s going to be sick. He knows Octavia hasn’t been doing well.

They use the Find My Phone feature to track Octavia down. She’s on a street a couple of miles away, and they get in the car to drive to her. When they finally find her, she’s trudging along in the slushy street, not on the sidewalk like she should be. She keeps weaving toward the middle of the street, then going back toward the side. Lincoln pulls up beside her and Raven rolls down her window.   
“O, hop in.”

She looks up, startled.

“I--I’m not ready.”

“I’ll get out and walk with you.” She nods at Lincoln, who stops the car to let her out. She walks up next to Octavia, watching her step and the placement of her cane on the ice and slush. “So what’s up?”

“I don’t know. I just needed to get out of the house.”

“You could have let us know. You had us worried.”

A car passes and honks at Octavia, who’s still weaving. 

“O, why don’t we get up on the sidewalk? We don’t have to stop walking, just go where it’s a little safer.”

Octavia’s face contorts and she covers her face with her hands, bending over like she’s been punched in the gut.

“Hey,” Raven says softly, putting a hand on Octavia’s back.

“I wanna be done,” Octavia cries.

“With what?”

“I wanna die.”

“Oh.”

Octavia lets out a sob. They hear someone behind them, and Lincoln has parked the car and is trotting up to them. Raven gives him a look as Octavia starts walking again, tears trickling down her face.

“I’m sorry. I know you’re working so hard to get over your eating disorder. And Lincoln’s talking with his sponsor and staying away from triggers. And I’m just… failing.”

“You’re not failing.”

She lets out a harsh laugh. “I’m literally failing. I got a 52 on one of my finals. A 66 on another. This isn’t me. I’m not me, and I don’t know how to be me again. I’m gonna have to re-take my classes. Which means I’m not going to graduate on time. Kane’s going to be so disappointed in me.”

“He cares more about you than your grades. He’ll understand.”

She starts edging out toward the middle of the road and a car honks behind them. Lincoln hurries up behind her and takes her by the shoulders, leading her toward the sidewalk. She stops moving and breaks down into sobs.

Lincoln and Raven meet eyes, both concerned. Lincoln hugs Octavia to himself, wrapping his arms around her chest and pulling her backward to him, putting his chin over her head.

“O, are you feeling unsafe?”

“Y-yes.”

“Do you have a plan to end your life?”

She’s silent for a long time.

“O?”

“Yeah, a few of them.”

“Okay. Um… Can I leave you here with Raven while I get the car?”

“No,” she whimpers, grabbing one of his arms to keep it around her.

“I’ll get it,” Raven says. Lincoln hands her the keys. She makes her way as quickly as she can with her cantankerous hip back to where he parked the car. She drives it up the street to where Lincoln and Octavia are. Lincoln leads Octavia to the car and helps her inside, scooting in after her.

“Rae, I think we should go to an ER.”

“No,” Octavia murmurs. She’s been to the psychiatric ER a couple of times. It’s never been very helpful and always felt pretty dehumanizing. 

“Octavia, we can’t watch you 24/7. We’re going to be here for you, but if you have a plan to end your life, you need more help than we can give you.”

“You’ve watched me before when I’ve been suicidal. What’s different now?”

“Nyko and I have been talking about dependent relationships in our 12 step study. I’m starting to realize I can’t be the only thing between you and death. There needs to be other supports there. I can’t help you the way that you need by myself.”

“They can’t help me either. There’s nothing they can do to make me not feel like I wanna die at the ER.”

“You’re probably right. Which means you might need some more intensive care.”

“I don’t want to go to a psych ward or treatment program.”

“I hear you.”

“Please Lincoln.”

“Love, I know you’re worried. And I care about that. And I also care about keeping you safe. That’s my number one concern. I will do everything I can to make sure you are going to get the help you need from competent and caring people. But you need more support than Raven or I can give you. And I don’t want to toy around with your life, because it’s very precious to me.”

She starts crying again.

“You’re going to be okay.”

Octavia sniffles.

“I’m gonna call Kane,” Raven says. She voice calls him and he picks up after one ring.

“Did you find her?

“Yeah, we did.”

“Is she okay?”

“Um, she’s not feeling too hot. We’re thinking she needs to be at a psych ER. Do you know of one around here?”

“Yes.” He gives her the name and texts her the address. “I’ll meet you guys there.”

They drive mostly in silence, Octavia quieting her crying after a while. Raven pulls up to the ER turn-around. 

“Alright O, let’s do this,” Lincoln says, grabbing her hand. She shakily follows him out of the car and into the building as Raven pulls away to park.

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
